The Sin Eater: Anthony Pellicano

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Zaren Elizabeth.

You know it's ridiculous.

Oh my god, I'm so glad you asked me that ten gallon hats?

Yes, totalous, right?

If you poured water in them or like beer or champagne or whatever, do you know how much it would hold? How much liquid?

Ten gallons?

No, one gallon?

One gallon?

Yeah. So people are always like, wait a minute, how much? Why is it called a ten gallon hat if it only holds one gallon of liquid, like, you know, like smart alec kids like me. Well, it turns out there's a good guard darn reason for that. The term is actually galloon, and it refers to a certain kind of braid, like a braided band that used to be popular, and they were worn by the Mexican baccaros around their hat and you could fit ten galloons on that hat. So

Huh, you're very ridiculous. Uh do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

Girl? I came here for it?

Wire Tapping. What this is? Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Damn right now, you just hit us on Tuesday with a big Hollywood story.

Yeah I did.

I'm going to hit you back. Oh really? Oh yeah, we're going back to tinseltown.

Bring you baby.

I want to read a quote to you from today's Fellow Sure quote. You have to be honorable, you have to keep your word, and you have to be loyal. Were there things that I did that other people find unreasonable or despicable or whatever adjective you want to use. I don't care. I care about that person who entrusted me to solve their problem. That's who I care about.

Oh yeah, swifty Lazar, Now who is this?

So this is a man with a code, and that code is that he doesn't give a tinker's damn about what is legal and what is illegal.

Oh so one of our people, one.

Of our people. He had a client and he would do whatever he needed to do in order to meet or exceed that client's request.

Okay, this is not Swifty Lazarre.

No, this man Anthony Pelicano.

Oh my god, Oh my god.

Yes, he was born Anthony Joseph Pelican l Junior in nineteen forty four in Cicero, Illinois, al Capone's hometown.

Oh yeah, gangster rich, and it's something that he liked to point out, of course.

So he had these Sicilians Sicilian grand parents. When they came over, they americanized the family name to Pelican or Pelican in order to get by in their new homeland. But Anthony true to his roots. When he became an adult, he went back to the original Pelicano.

He's a compone's not going to trust anybody named Pelican Pelicano exactly.

So he joins the US Army Signal Corps. When they asked him what he wanted to do, he said electronics because he saw a magazine in the recruiter's office with that on it.

Good answer.

Yeah, he trained to be a cryptographer because like when he signed up, he said he was super inte electronics.

I'm smart.

He got stationed in France, and that meant no Vietnam, people.

Who like electronics don't usually get shot in the army, exactly.

Smart move. So when he got out of.

The army, he, I mean when you say it in the draft, not like people who like electronics, A lot of them on the front line. You're like, I like electronics.

Arrein Yeah, I don't mean that when you enlist.

Yeah, tell them.

So he gets out of the army, he gets a job in collections, and he's tracking down those who haven't paid their bills. And then that takes us to nineteen sixty nine.

He becomes not for the mob, he's actually legit collect He's still wearing.

That suit exactly, and so in nineteen sixty nine he decides to officially become a private investigator. Have you ever met a PI?

Oh?

Yeah, I have a friend of a PI. Yeah.

I knew someone who transitioned out of that gig. Yeah, And she said it was lots of like sitting in the car in the car, divorce work, taking pictures of people having affairs.

Yeah, totally. That still is the thing. Like from the nineteen thirties on, it's been the same thing. Sit in a car, eat fast food, take photos you wish you didn't have to take.

Exactly. So Pelicano he sees all these ads in the Yellow Pages for pis and he figures he should like start out at an established office. So this is what he told La Times.

Quote.

So I called the biggest ad in there, and I said, listen, I'm the best skip tracer there is. I want to do all your work. Give me your hardest case. They'd been looking for this missing little girl for six weeks and I found her in two days. How with intelligence, logic, common sense, a tremendous amount of imagination and an acute perception.

So he really did. Yeah, he didn't just go down and like like bribe the right peo people.

He knows how to do these things. A character.

He was a good detective. Oh yeah.

According to Vanity Fair quote, he drove a large linking continental, sealed his letters with monogrammed wax, and hung samurai swords in his office. At various times. He gave his employees and family members necklaces bearing a small golden horn he said contained a strand of his hair.

Oh my god.

Much of his early work involved missing persons. A nineteen seventy eight article claimed that he had found three nine hundred and sixty eight of them, which works out to about four hundred and forty people a year, more than one a day.

So I think he used to have an office on Sunset Boulevard.

He did.

We'll get to that, okay. I remember people have pointed it out, like they'd be like, you know, that's pelicanas exactly.

So seventy seven he made a splash by finding the stolen remains of Mike Todd, Elizabeth Taylor's third husband. Oh wow, so remains stolen? Tell me more?

Yeah, he must.

Mike Todd died in a plane crash and he was buried in a Chicago cemetery and what was left of him was quote basically a handful of dust and what was likely part of a nylon seat belt.

He was buried with a seat belt. This is also his returnal remains.

Yes, it's just a little bit of stuff that's a bag and they put it in a rubber bag and then tucked it into a coffin and buried it.

They didn't even get like a little Crown royal bag because apparently not.

I don't know why I rubbed it. So around June twenty fifth, nineteen seventy seven, his grave is found all dug up, the coffin empty. Cops are on the case, but they're like they're coming up empty empty as the coffins. Eric Yes, So June twenty eighth, Pelicano, he calls Chicago's Channel two news and he says, hey, pal listen, I got a tip about where to find what's left of all Mike Todd oh, and so Channel two they're all

There's numbered paces. He walks like a treasure map.

Yeah. He gets around seventy five yards away from the grave and he stops. I found it, he yells, Oh my god. Yeah, the detectives come running over and there's Pelicano pointing at a pile of leaves. Now, the cops had already searched this pile, tim So he reaches in and he pulls out a rubber bag. What how on earth did he get the tip about the bag?

Do you want my real answer?

No?

So he told the Chicago Sun Times that the tip came from someone likely acting on behalf of the thieves. Quote. I think they felt they made a tremendous mistake. He said. The information was volunteered to me. I'm a public figure and I've handled many many missing figures.

They could feel my heat on the collar. I was in hot pursuits. They were like, can't mister Pelicano.

But that's not all, he says. That wasn't all other tipsters and sources they reach out to him. Fill him in on the motive.

Oh multiple, Okay.

Well, supposedly the thieves were looking for a ten carrot diamond ring in the bag of ass. Well, apparently that was his wedding ring's wedding ring, and it survived the plane craft and they.

Thought Elizabeth would just put it in there as.

Like a right well, Liz had it though, of.

Course she loves the rings and diamonds in particular.

Exactly, so everyone figured it was probably the Chicago mob behind the whole thing. Oh okay, but the big rumor was that Pelicano was behind the whole thing for publicity, and that that publicity worked though, yeah, exactly. So he starts appearing as an expert witness for the government things. Oh yeah, he'd gone through this thing where he because of the finding Mike Todd's remains, and he winds up

It is like at the end of the Richard Daly era Chicago Sun.

So his particular expertise was deciphering tape recordings, okay, oh yeah, And in nineteen seventy four he was hired by the lawyers for Nixon's secretary. What they wanted him to recover that eighteen year gap in the water.

And to be able to prove that it had been done correctly.

Yeah, and so he said he couldn't recover them and he thought that the erasure was unintentional. Oh yeah, sure, buddy. So you know he did all sorts of other stuff. Where next, though, Where next? Elizabeth, when in doubt, moved to La Of course.

That's if you shake all like the country loose, that's throw all the loose nuts goots exactly.

He goes to Los Angeles Old Tinseltown nineteen eighty two. He boosted his profile by hinting that he had connections to the mob.

A good one. They love that there, anti.

Law enforcement, he played both sides.

They also love that there.

Yeah.

So now in Hollywood, Pelicano got this really sweet gig with lawyer Howard Weisman. Oh yeah, and Whitesman had a client who was accused of selling coke to finance his business. Ah, that client, John DeLorean, Yes, there you go. So there's a tape in which Delaurian referred to a suitcase of cocaine as quote better than gold.

And so maybe he was really good.

He was just you know, in the tape, he's meeting with these people that he thinks are investors, but they're actually cops. And DeLorean then, when the whole thing goes down, claims that he was being set up. So Pelicano, his job is to provide that yes, to.

Prove yes, indeed set up okay, Yeah, And.

So he showed the jury that the tapes had been altered, these tapes where he's calling it, you know, better than gold. Yeah, And as a result, Delorean's acquitted.

He got Delarean off.

Yes. Wow, this was the biggest boost yet for Pelicanos for a while.

So he was in a town with a lot of people need to get off of right.

And he goes up against the Feds and wins. Everyone wants his services.

Now.

They would say, they're like, they have a ninety nine percent prosecution right now, you beat the Feds, that's yeah.

So he's in the big time, of course, and he made sure to charge his clients accordingly. He charged a standard twenty five thousand dollars retainer that was like the baseline. Yeah, and on top of that, he had other fees that you know, the price of his services could go into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yeah. The twenty five thousand is so he would answer your call it three.

As exactly exactly. So around nineteen eighty nine, he gets hired by a high profile attorney named Bert Fields. Yes, so, Bert Charlie Burt nine hundred dollars an hour at the time. That's like twenty two hundred dollars an hour now, insane. Ken Aletta wrote for The New Yorker that Fields and Fields passed away in twenty twenty two at the age

And he wears great suits.

Yes he did, he did rip so. Pelicano's first gig with Fields was for a wildly Hollywood character one accused of sexual harassment by a former a song as.

Old as Time. Oh, yes, very Hollywood.

But this was none other than producer Don Simpson. Oh no, Simpson, producer of Top Go flash Dance.

I told you my friend that was his, Like, I know so much about him because he would tell me these stories, you know, one time Don Simpson, Like I don't it was like his like one time at band camp. But it's like one time Don Simpson. I'm like, so we've.

Talked about it before. He was completely out of control.

Watch terrible person, just Si always hanging out with piles of cocaine and like sex workers who just had to be there. Like nobody who wasn't paid wanted to be around him.

But his serious Hollywood power player. Oh totally but completely off the making one hundred million dollar movies. Everyone just like gave him cart block because he wrote he would basically go out there and make a movie and you know it was gonna be that year is one of the big Temple hits three hundred million, four hundred and five or whatever it was. He'd be like, oh wow, Days of Thunder, all those movies that boom.

Yeah. So his assistant alleged that Simpson quote snorted cocaine in the office, ordered her to line up dates with prostitutes, exposed her to pornographic material, and cussed her out.

That sounds like they have yes, sounds like a Monday. Son's having a good Monday?

Is that New Yorker piece? It says quote Pelicano uncovered information about Simpson's accuser, including the fact that she had hired a mail stripper for a party. Instead of addressing her charges, Fields questioned her character and credibility, and the revelations helped to get the case dismissed.

I love it gross the character assassination in American criminals like courtrooms.

Oh and Pelicano it seems yeah.

I'm like, does nobody ever think, like, wait a minute, this is just like on Law and Order, And I hate it when they do it there anyway. But on so.

Pelicano he had other stuff to do with Don Simpson. In August of nineteen ninety five, the doctor who was supposedly working with Simpson to address his addictions was found dead.

And I'm not laughing about him dying. I'm like, the man who's trying to help you with your addiction dies, have a drug lasted, the guy who's been hired to help you with this stuff.

Yeah, and so Pelicano's called before the cops. So he gets there toxicology though, like he cleans up the scene. Toxicology eventually revealed that the doctor had a whole messa drugs in the system. Oh so who knows what else?

Pelican he was helping him by doing the drugs again, I'll do all your drugs.

I would do the cocaine faster.

See the same thing happened in nineteen ninety six. The next year, when Simpson himself was found dead of an overdose, Pelicano was called before the police.

Tragic day for my friend.

Exactly.

So.

Another client of Field's former beatle, George Harrison, he had a problem.

I wouldn't have expected that.

He was getting threatening letters. And that's when he brought that security expert Gavin de Becker into his life. So Fields hired Pelicano again, and Pelicano found the letter writer within two days, and the letters immediately stopped.

Damn, he is good. I gotta do that.

So this is why Fields work, right, So Fields told the New Yorker quote, he came up with stuff that other people didn't. He did that over and over again. He was just better. I don't know how he did it. It certainly wasn't wire tapping. So like wire tapping, why would you say.

Why did you who brought tapping?

Who said that? But wiretapping is the tip of the iceberg on this, it's the good stuff, wiretapping or not. Fields was all in with Pelicano. So, according to Pelicano's employees, per Vanity, fair Fields quote brought Pelicano into DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg's litigation with Disney's Michael Eisner.

Oh, a huge case.

Tom Cruise's defense against a gay porn stars sex allegations. Another big one, Imagine Entertainment suit against Mike Myers, but a few totally.

I forgot about the Mike Myers.

You liked the late great Gary Shandling, right, Oh?

Yeah, love him.

He was a comic genius, bit of a tortured.

Soul, totally but a good dude, totally good.

Yes, Since I can't think of an occasion when you hadn't at least heard of something, most likely even no facts and details about, especially when it comes to Hollywood stuff or obscure Eastern European Western Asian ancient history. I think you've heard about the beef between Gary Shandling and his manager Brad Gray.

I'm familiar.

He yeah, So let's take a break when we come back, I'll tell you all about it and how Anthony Pelicano factors into it.

Yes, welcome, Hey.

So when we last spoke, I was telling you about Gary Shandling and Brad Gray.

Correct.

So Gray he started out in Hollywood as a talent manager and from there he added in work as a producer. His first gig was in nineteen eighty six with It's Gary Shandling Show on Showtime. This is first producing thing, so Shanling. In that show, he played a stand up comic who also knows that he's a TV character, so he like interacts with the studio audience and he messes with storylines. Huge hit, critically acclaimed, ran for four seasons,

I wonder where they got the material.

I know some inspiration. So Pelicano, he's obsessed with the mob in the Sopranos. His ex wife Kat said that Pelicano watched The Sopranos every Sunday night, quote like he was going to church.

Is so into it.

The whole music in his Office was the soundtrack for The Godfather. Like the score for the film, he wore.

Sunglasses eighteen times.

I know you're like waiting for you. He wore sunglasses that were an exact copy of the ones Pacino wore in Godfather Took. His son, Luca, was named after Luca Brozi, don Corleone's favorite assassin.

Who was an actual mob enforcer, and then got brought on because he was a what do you called a I think at that point a bodyguard for one of the families. And they're like they'd worked out, like you got to hire some of our guys.

You know what. He sleeps with the fishes, dude, Luk. So that SAMEX wife Kat one of many I've said. Quote there were times when he would make my children kiss his hand like he was the Godfather. He started to think he was Don corleon Oh no, yea. So he kept a baseball bat in the trunk of his car, and he threatened people.

With it, so that O and Pelicans really jumping out for him.

He once told a reporter quote, guys who with me, get to meet my buddy here talking about the bat bat.

Yeah, his old friend Louisville exactly mister slugger.

He was like deep into the whole Omerta.

Oh yeah, coda silence, Yeah.

Loyalty silence. He had his staff abide by Omerta.

How was he They do it with a ritual, like making them like they come into the office on on Tuesday night, we're doing.

We're going to burn a prayer card. I don't know. He called himself the sin eater, Oh God, that he absorbed his clients sins and wrongdoings and made them disappear by making them his. So let's circle back though to wire.

I guess that's better than being the death eater, you know, So.

Wire Wire, what I didn't say? He was a wire tapper. In nineteen ninety five, he got himself a computer programmer named Kevin Katchikian, and he had Kachiki and develop a system to intercept telephone. Yeah right, gotta love them. The two of them called this system that he developed teleslouth okay, and they even applied for a trademark on it. Nothing ever came of that, but Kachikian developed another program that

Yeah, so I'm sure they kind of used similar with the use now with all the like the passes where they do a past and they can do gain exactly exactly.

So he he creates one Pelicano then bribed two Pacific Bell employees to rig poes so that Teleslouth could listen in on the calls.

We need material.

Tell us the interception was done at the level of the phone company. It wasn't done in the home.

He wasn't wiring there, he wasn't breaking in.

He's not there's no home break in. If he's sweep for bugs, you're not gonna find any, tell us. Luth then link the calls to Pelicanos office computers and.

It says like someone else is on this line.

What the hell they'd hear like little clicks and whatever. So, since the computers could only wire tap recordings from their own area code in order, like so he's in three ten and he's able to tap three tens. So but for him to get calls in three two, three two on three six, two, six, eight, one eight, all the other south Land area codes, he had to rent an apartment in each area code where he could establish a computer and a hard drive. Yeah, exactly. All of this

You cannot record a person on the phone in California.

That's in most places it's two parties and it's one, but that means that one of the already has to be the originator of the recording this. You know, he's just snoop and it's illegal everywhere. So everyone suspected that Pelicano was tapping phones somehow, and he most certainly was, and it was getting him results. The La Times called him the least private private eye in town. So he got He got hired by Tom Cruise during his divorce

Interesting.

He had tons of celebrity clients. Jerry Springer used him to find out how he was videotaped in a threesome with porn star Kendrid Jade and her stepmom.

What yeah, I read that and what I don't sentence?

I say what, but I want it to stop right there.

One time mayor of Cleveland.

Exactly, Chris Rock came to Pelicano when he was facing a paternity lawsuit filed by a Hungarian model. The tapes of their conversations are amazing.

Wait, the Hungarian model Chris.

Rock no Pelicano and Rock Pelicano calls Rock honey. He's like, listen, honey, I'm gonna yeah. Chris Rock is just like exasperated to the whole thing. They have a very graphic conversation about like how this could have happened. Okay, Yeah, it's amazing. There's a tape of him talking to Courtney Love and he calls her a baby and he postures about like his strong arm tactics.

So Pelicanna just calls everybody baby baby honey.

Yeah, exactly. He tells her quote, if you come to me, that's the end of that. I'm an old style Sicilian. I only go one way. I'm very heavy hand in. Honey, love super into it.

She's like yeah, oh, She's like perfect, I need a hammer just like you.

And that's the thing, Like there's an appeal to a fixer like that, this is what you want from a someone can just make your make your problems go way. Yeah, And there's a certain excitement, like a romance of the notion that, like this person is ruthless and they'll use muscle and intimidation to do your bidding.

Mmmm. And also I think though, if you go one step past that, you want the Ray Donovan, which is discretion is the better part of valor. So not only will he like crack heads or like make people cried and say I take back what I said or whatever, but also no one ever.

Hears, oh never knows exactly. But see there's always another side to it. That's like those on the receiving ends.

Oh yeah, no, it's terrible for them. This is not anything we would know or recognize as justice.

No.

His most infamous case was in nineteen ninety three, Bert Field's and a team of lawyers. They brought Pelicano in to help defend Michael Jackson from child molestation charges.

Yeah, this is where they attack the family.

Pelicano signs on, but he said he would only do so if Jackson wasn't guilty. I will only work for him if he didn't do this, okay. And then he said he told Jackson, quote, you don't have to worry about or lawyers. If I find out anything, I will you over. Yeah.

Damn. Does he know that Michael Jackson was always alleged to be an actual cryp, like like an honorary crypt he only wore blue. He was like, the rumors. I don't know the truth of it, but the rumors, the alleged rumors is that Michael Jackson's affiliated, like deep with the crips.

I am in love with that rumors. So you know, Pelicano. He threatens Jackson, if you really did this, it's over for you.

It's curtains for you, okay.

And then he turns around. He goes after the family of the thirteen year old accuser and digs up any dirt he can find. He then organized a CNN interview with Wade robson a kid who was in that Jackson sphere. He later goes on to be like a choreographer, I think, but at the time he's like a tween staying at Neverland Ranch. And in the interview, Robson he just like vehemently denies that anything like that had happened. He says, he slept in the same bed as Jackson, but absolutely nothing.

Under story of like, I vehemently denied these allegations because nothing like that happened for me.

Right, But then years later Robson goes public says, yes, I was actually sexually abused by Jackson.

Oh god, yeah.

Robson's mother said that she was coerced by Pelicano into doing the CNN interview that absolved Jackson of all guilt. So Jackson in the original family they have eventually settled. Pelicano he got a pretty penny out of the world.

How pretty this penny?

A million dollar fee, a million dollar bonus, and a Mercedes Benz convertible. Wow, throwing a Benz.

He's throwing like a picture of a sign, picture of bubbles, the chimp.

Probably handprint on it, exactly. So Pelicano later said though that he fired Jackson as a client. What he said he fired him because he said he apparently he found out about other even darker truths about Jackson. Pelicano said, quote, he did something far worse to young boys than molest them, which I don't.

Want to know what that could be. I don't even want to imagine.

And Pelicano was like, I'm out of here, which he kind of he was supposed to be out of earlier.

And also he was supposed to f people up if he found out that he was guilty. He did not live up to his word.

Mister Omerta, who's not alive right now?

Oh, I just I just a joke because I'm not I'm not accused that doctor.

Wasn't just so you know, absent minded or whatever.

But here's the thing, like, uh, Pelicano, he claimed that he was offered five hundred thousand dollars to tell the story of whatever darker deeds, but he refused why. I don't know.

I thought he loved money and all that.

I don't know. So Pelicano, he just keeps wire tapping and intimidating along.

She was like, I got wire tapping to do. I don't have time to.

Talk, so busy about this. So there's a Canadian newspaper publishing era named Taylor Thompson. She hired Pelicano to assist her in a custody battle.

Okay, like Toronto Star paper.

Yes, yes, all the like yeah, the bigness. So Thompson was rich, violently rich, as I like. Oh yes, her family is worth fourteen point nine billion. Oh yeah, and Forbes said that she was the one hundred and fifty ninth richest woman in the world.

Congratulations, it's me.

Thompson was living in la with her toddler daughter, as is the fashion for the rich who don't have a day job, she hired a nanny. Oh of course, kid, a woman named Pamela Miller. So Thompson's ex still lived in Canada. He wanted more visitation rights for his daughter. Cue the lawsuits. Miller's paycheck came from Thompson, so when it came time to go to court, she felt like she had to back up her employer. Of course, but

You got a two year old on a diet. She's like, look at these rolls? Can we get rid of my roll?

All up in the ass makes the kid?

I don't like it. I want to see the bone.

I want the bone. I want I want to see.

Color and ribs. That's what I want to see. February a racehorse ribs.

February of two thousand and two. The little girl complained of an earache, and Miller, the nanny, said that Thompson the mom poured olive oil and sawtaed onions into the ear to soothe the pain.

What I can't is that, even like an old wife, the kid's not an omelet.

I don't know. I've never heard that sawtaed onions in an ear?

Are you shoving it down in the netty pot? Like how does that work?

I don't know? Like, of course it doesn't work. So the kid is even in more pain. Yeah, Miller had to stay up all night to soothe her because like, where's the mom. She dumps the stuff in her ear and takes.

Off, and now she's got like a mess and an infection. Yeah.

So that was the last straw for Miller than nanny. She rang up the dad in Canada. He was understandably upset.

Because he's like, I can't take care of the kid and you are in the air.

Yeah. So Miller is now on his side in the court case. She signed an affi David affirming that you know what she'd seen and what she experience and of course, you know, Thompson gets word of this and fires her. Okay, So Thompson found out that she had called you know, the and was planning to help in the case. So she turns around and she hires Anthony Pelicanoh charge was to make Miller's life miserable.

Yes, I call that one.

According to Vanity Fair quote, whenever she would get a new nanny job, she would be let go. Within weeks of her being hired by a member of the Michael Douglas family, she was let go. The same thing happened when she went to work for producer John Peters. Pelicana would stalk her going as far as to sit directly behind her in a movie theater. She was wiretapped, and members of her family had their private information illegally accessed.

Wow.

It wasn't just the foes of his clients that he went after. He also went after well, yeah, the press exactly. So there's this journalist with the show Hard Copy, which I'm tempted to put the word journalist in quotation marks. We're talking about that show. But I suppose technically she was a journalist named Diane Diamond. She got a first

And the only time she said the words.

Out loud, exactly. And there it is, you know, boom trap.

An ego trap, It's like a money trap an ego exactly.

But it wasn't just Diane Diamond who was the focus of this. LA Times reporter Anita Bush was also a target. Bush, a former New York Times reporter, was working on stories about the movie industry. One was about an allegation that one of Action stars Steven Sagall's producing partners was in with the Gambino crime family.

I mean, come on, that surprised.

She was also doing another piece about Michael Ovitz, the founder of CAA talent and one time president of Disney.

Oh yeah, big lawsuit against Michael Eisner.

Uh huh. So she had been writing about how his agency was failing something he didn't take kindly to. Let's take a break. When we come back, we'll find out what he did to Anita Bush.

Oh, Zarin, Elizabeth, close your eyes.

Oh you snuck it up on me. I'll right my eyes.

I want you to picture it. Yes, it's the morning of June twentieth, two thousand and two. You're standing on the front lawn of your house, watering your hydranges before the heat kicks in. The birds are singing, and you wave at two kids riding by on their bikes. They see you and give you the middle finger. You scoff and go back to watering your plants. You casually look

Yes, like what that's the look of Brazzi thing, but with a touch of class.

It's a touch of glass. So the FEDS discovered that an lapd sergeant named Mark Arneson, who was on Pelicano's payroll, had run a background and address check for Bush.

Okay.

The investigation then kind of turns over to the OVID stories. According to the New Yorker quote, Ovitz told the FBI that he paid Pelicano seventy five thousand dollars to investigate two CAA agents and, among others, his former partner Ron Mayer, David Geffen, and the reporters Anita Bush and Bernard Wintraub, then with The New York Times, who were allegedly harming his ability to sell Artists Management Group. Wow, huh so they knew, Okay, well, maybe this has to do with him.

But that's just oh interesting call.

Yeah. So, when asked about Pelicano's ties to Illinois mobsters, Ovid said that he never saw them. Quote to me, this is going to sound really stupid, but the couple of times I met him, he seemed really out of shape. He was just a regular looking middle aged man. He didn't look like those imposing guys on the Sopranos are in The Godfather. I'm like, did you watch the Sopranos that It's not just a bunch of like card bodies exactly.

Just get some tracksuits, valure and you got it.

Boom okay. So Bush later sued Ovids and Pelicano, and they settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. On November twenty first, two thousand and two, the FBI rated Pelicano's Sunset Boulevard office. Are you saying? They found there a safe full of quote, explosives, two hand grenades, loaded pistols, and bundles of cash, totaling about two hundred thousand dollars.

So his go bag his going exactly.

He said that the explosives belonged to a celebrity client, likely Don Simpson, and that he confiscated them and was going to dispose of them by throwing them off of a friend's boat, as you do.

Yeah, that's how I get rid of it.

That's the best way.

If I don't, if I can't reach your pier, I'm like, hey, was this go out this weekend?

Toss it.

I'm gonna bring some explosives. I need a dump.

So two months later the FBI raided his offices again. They discovered that most of what had been in the office was now shredded or gone, including the entire Michael Jackson case. Everything's gone. However, they found something in the back room. Pellicano called that the bat cave or the war room, and in it were computers and like those cd ROMs. Sure full of hundreds of hours of encrypted, illegally wired tapped conversations and things.

I'm sure he didn't understand how to destroy, so he's probably.

And then there were also but he could destroy one hundred and fifty thousand pages of transcribed recordings. Oh wow, this transcriptions. So the FBI cracked the password on the protected files. Yes, it was office Dash three two two dash omerta. The files weren't the recordings of tape of the tapped calls for clients that they were hoping they'd be okay, like the you know, unwing tap. No, they were conversations that Pelicano had taped of himself, conversations with his clients.

Oh, his own clients. Okay.

These served as his notes. He told the feds.

Ah, they're not like his blackmail leverage.

No.

But according to the New York Times, quote in the calls, mister Pelicano was often heard posturing as if he were a Coosonostram mobster, boasting of his Omerita like code of honor, his connection to gangsters, and his distaste for quote rats.

For somebody who has a love of America, he really doesn't understand the silent part.

Of it, exactly exactly, he.

Understands the code part. He's got that.

When you watch that documentary The Sin Eater, they play the tapes and it's just like the way he's just posturing is phenomenal.

Anyone who really is involved with in the Omerica, you probably won't ever hear anything about it. It's gonna be like someone talking about the Warriors. They just don't talk about that.

That's the whole point. Well, so these tapes and the interviews with employees that the FEDS did exposed how Pelicano dug up all the information in the dirt he needed. So Vanity Fair lays this out. First, you get his or in lots of juicy cases, her address, No problem there. A police sergeant on Pelicano's payroll would tap into the LAPD computer databases. Now that you have the address, getting

I'm guessing at this point all of his big lawyer friends have turned on him and he doesn't have the ability to get a tumble.

Them are like in the cross.

They want to have as much distance as they can.

Well, here's the thing, Okay, So the trial begins in March of two thousand and eight, he represented himself. Oh my god, that's no way to win.

He's not even a lawyer, no way to win.

But he said he we knew he was going to lose, and I know that. He said he wasn't going to rat on anyone. Okay, he knew his employees.

Would sing to the Feds like Pavarati.

But he said he knew the most about the case. And he said he didn't know a lawyer smart enough to take the case, So why pay if the inevitable him going to jail is going to happen.

Wait to get the insult in there to all the lawyers he knows on the way to I'm going to jail.

He announced mid trial that he would not take the stand. Quote, I am not mister Pelicano is not going to discuss conversations with clients. It's not going to happen ever, no matter the consequence.

He's sitting in one chair, your honor, just one secondly, going to consult My client, jumps chairs and whispers to himself and he listens. Okay, I guess it, fights with himself, jumps back chairs, your honor. My client is being unreasonable.

Exactly, he said later, quote, I could have saved myself or at least done less time if I had even slightly cooperated with the government. I could have ruined many careers in lives, and I could have hurt many law enforcement personnel employees, even judges. But I would have dishonored myself by doing so. I remember them telling the court that they disagreed with my form of honor, but respected it.

So he only likes to brag for little chits of like, hey, you know, cool I am. But when it comes down to like being able to free himself from anything, that's when the America.

Kemes yeah, but no the owners, Yeah, he firm, he held firm. So May of two thousand and eight, he's convicted on seventy six counts of wire tapping, racketeering, and other charges. It took the judge an hour to read the full verdict. Oh wow, he gets sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

That's all.

He Also he had to forfeit more than two million dollars that he made from his wire tapping work. Michael Ovitz, Brad Gray, Bert Fields, all of the other Hollywood elite in his orbit. They all escaped charges or implications. Of course, many thought the trial would implicate, you know, all of these elite but it never did.

They can I'll say, I'd never unless they have a tape of him saying I'll do this for you, and then they're lawyer. A lot of them are lawyers. They're not going to let somebody.

Say that out exactly exactly. So there were some who did get in trouble for their work with Pelicano.

Non lawyers.

Yeah, a former phone company worker was found guilty of racketeering, conspiracy, and wire tapping, but was acquitted of four of nine of the wire tapping accounts. Remember Kevin Kachikian, Yes, hell Yeah, developed tell Us luth. He was convicted of possessing a wire tapping device and conspiracy to wire tap, but he got acquitted of nine counts of wire tapping. Abner Nachierri he was charged with listening to and translating a business

There you go.

One count of perjury for a statement to a federal judge while seeking to withdraw his plea, and he got a year in prison.

I'm telling you.

A couple days after the initial indictment, Pelicano and Terry Christiansen, a Hollywood lawyer, they were each indicted on two new counts of conspiracy and wiretapping. Christiansen pleaded not guilty. So

And does it. And then this guy's like, I'll take that money.

When he did those searches, the Rossini he was dating actress Linda Fiorentino. Get out, I will not Fiorentino friend of Pelicano.

Of course I hear.

Yeah. So apparently she told Rossini quote, she was researching a script about an LA wiretapper extraordinaire Anthony Pelicano and needed to see the documents exactly.

I was doing research exactly.

So Rossini he pleads guilty to five misdemeanor counts of unauthorized FBI computer access, and he admitted to quote conducting more than forty unauthorized searches of the Bureau's automated case support system, which contains confidential and sensitive information related to ongoing and historic cases investigated by the FBI. Many of the searches related to the criminal case against Pelicano, who was tried and convicted earlier in Los Angeles. Yeah, so Rossini,

I thought he's gonna get like one to three.

They're like, he's love sick, you know, I don't know.

He also loves He had to resign, wouldn't you.

He had to resign from the FBI. In prison, Pelicano wrote, Haikus did crosswords, so like at this point, wrote Haikus and did crosswords. He's me. In college, he played chess, he read two thousand books. Okay, it's still me. And then he did high level geometry problems, so that's you.

Okay, he's got one of me. Mostly tell me, he.

Said, quote, I don't make any friends. I'm absolutely unsociable. You have to understand there are guys here who are looking for ways to get information, to get their sentences reduced and all that. There's always a guy who will ask me a question that will lead to another question. So I just don't answer people. I keep to myself.

Wow, and he made it through.

Yeah. He was released on his seventy fifth birthday, March twenty second, twenty nineteen.

I guess he was in such an old head that they just let.

Him set to the side.

In twenty eighteen, he's hanging out on the chapel doing geometry.

Exactly twenty eighteen, he told the Hollywood Reporter, quote, the government claimed that I compromised the judicial system, and I did. I was off in the court of last resort for many people. People and not just famous ones. Didn't pay me all that money just to hear stories about how I had failed to get things done.

Oh yeah.

I always kept my word and I did everything I could, good, bad or indifferent to get the job done. And I was successful.

Now can you imagine the good at his job Anthony pelicannor who's out there right now doing all the same stuff for all this people. So we aren't going to hear about it because exactly they aren't telling around going hey, I'm a merit dem every.

Joker we have on this podcast, there's got to be another who we don't find out about. Yes, so he gets out. He has lost his PI license for good, No worries. He's still quote negotiated for friends. Twenty twenty one, Ron City experts Ron Mayer, the vice chairman of NBC Universal, asked him to represent producer Joel Silver in a negotiation with Canadian billionaire and businessman Darryl Kate's. Okay, Pelican, he got power of attorney to act on Silver's behalf for these negotiations.

Got power of attorney for Joel.

Silver, limited power to sole.

Yeah, Joel Silver trusted him a power of attorney the man who defended himself in court and.

Pelicana wouldn't say how he settled the argument. But quote, folks in the media call me a fixer. So that's a term you could use. I'm legally allowed to do that.

I'm a legal fixer, right so, and my buddy Lougal slugger At he said.

Quote people like to call me a fixer. The term I use is negotiator. I negotiate on behalf of clients. Am I doing anything illegal?

No? I am not. Ah see, I like to call myself a facilitator.

He settled the Silver Kates thing, but then August of twenty two, Kate's hired him, apparently impressed with his fixing skills just by being amazed. So Kate's had been accused of paying seventy five thousand dollars for sex with a seventeen year old ballet dancer, Oh Jesus. Kate said that they didn't have sex, and that he paid her fifty thousand dollars for a proposed film project and then anyway, she was eight when he met her.

Sir, Yeah, sir.

The allegations are dismissed in court, but Pelicano was able to get them dismissed quote with prejudice so they wouldn't come up later.

Alec Baldwin, Alec AaB I have personal tized to him.

Researcher Marissa described him as quote the ultimate sycophant, which is so spot on. That's a really good call, Yeah, Baldwin. He interviewed Pelicano for his podcast. Here's the thing. Okay, here's Baldwin kissing up to Pelicano. Quote. I do believe from the research I've done, you're obviously a very smart guy. You're a very tough guy. You're a guy with a lot of principles. You went through hell because of your principles. But when you really tortured yourself in service of your principles.

You would one percent two hundred percent have hired him and then said I want to hear the legal stuff.

Yeah exactly, And then right now he's just saying, don't ever come at me with Pelicano told Alec Baldwin quote to me, the most important thing in my life was honor and my word. It still is today because they took everything away and that's what I've got left, and that's all I really cherish. When I had a client, they became a member of my family, and nobody with my family.

Certain none of your family talks to you.

Well, apparently money buys entry into the family.

Yeah, that's how it works.

So what's your ridiculous takeaways? Aaron? Thanks for asking.

These these rental families. I just do not trust them. I know, either you're talking about the real mafia or just the Pelicano mafia. If I'm buying my way into a family, I don't know. I mean, money spends so quick. Exactly what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Losing exactly what yours was?

Oh nice, look at that symmetry.

That's all I have for today. You can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com. We're also at ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, leave a talk back on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton's and Burnett that's produced and edited by President of Teleslooth Industries, Dave Coustain. Tim research is by Crooked LAPD officer Marisa Brown and proud owner of a fishmonger

Rounds Crime, Say It One More Time, Gus Crime.

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