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Christensen seeks home confinement

By Richard Binder

Terry Christensen, the lawyer who was convicted this summer for hiring a private investigator to wiretap his opponent in a high profile child support case, claiming he had an "aberrational, isolated exercise of bad judgment," is seeking a probationary sentence of 10 months to be carried out in home confinement.

The request, outlined in a sentencing memorandum filed on Thursday, mimics the recommendation of the U.S. Probation Office, which also suggested a fine of $30,000, and contrasts significantly with the position of federal prosecutors. On Monday, in their own sentencing memorandum, prosecutors demanded that Christensen, who faced trial alongside the private investigator, celebrity sleuth Anthony Pellicano, serve three years in federal prison and pay a $500,000 fine due to his "brazen efforts to corrupt and subvert the legal system."

The government claims that Christensen paid more than $100,000 to Pellicano to wiretap the phone lines of Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the ex-wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, in a 2002 child support case involving her daughter, Kira. Bonder Kerkorian and Kerkorian were married for 28 days.

Read the full NLJ article.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on November 14, 2008 (boomark / email).