Legal News

Was Kerkorian Complicit in Pellicano Conduct? Judge Thinks So

By Ashby Jones

Wow. We’d long put the Anthony Pellicano case to rest. But Thursday comes news that has us reaching through our memory banks to piece it all together: The federal judge in the case, which revolved around the high-profile wiretapping case of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano, said there was “reasonable cause to believe” that billionaire Kirk Kerkorian was “complicit” in some of Pellicano’s illegal conduct. Click here for the story, from the WSJ.

The statements, by Los Angeles judge Dale Fischer, were made as part of a 2008 order that was only recently unsealed. Kerkorian, 92 years old, a prominent businessman and investor, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged with a crime. There aren’t any indications that federal prosecutors are looking at taking any action against Kerkorian.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which handled the Pellicano case, declined to comment on Judge Fischer’s order, which surfaced Wednesday in connection with a lawsuit in Los Angeles state court.

Judge Fischer presided over the criminal cases of Pellicano and Terry Christensen, Kerkorian’s longtime attorney. The two men were charged with conspiring to tap the telephones of Kerkorian’s former wife, Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, in connection with a child-support dispute the Kerkorians were having. Both men were convicted last year and sentenced to prison. (Click here and here for LB posts concerning Pellicano’s sentencing.)

The suit in Los Angeles state court was brought by Bonder Kerkorian against Kerkorian, Christiansen and Pellicano over the wiretapping. An attorney for Kerkorian declined Wednesday to comment about Judge Fischer’s order.

Judge Fischer’s 2008 order from last year’s criminal trial related to defense efforts to block the prosecution from using tape recordings that Pellicano made of conversations he had with Mr. Christensen concerning the child-support battle. Judge Fischer rejected the argument that attorney-client privilege between Christensen and Kerkorian extended to the lawyer’s conversations with Pellicano. Among the reasons cited was the “crime-fraud exception,” which the judge said doesn’t recognize attorney-client privilege “when a lawyer’s advice is sought to further a crime or fraud.”

In the order, the judge cited a conversation in which Pellicano asked Christensen if Kerkorian was happy with the investigator’s work, and Christensen replied that “our jaw is still hanging down” about some of the information that had been supplied.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).