Pellicano Is Sentenced to 30 Months

Anthony Pellicano, the high-profile private investigator whose clients included some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, was sentenced Friday to 30 months in federal prison for possessing two illegal hand grenades and a quantity of plastic explosives.

Dressed in a drab green windbreaker and baggy gray prison trousers, and chained about the hands and ankles, Pellicano politely declined an invitation to address the court, an opportunity routinely accorded prisoners before sentencing.

Under terms of a plea agreement with prosecutors, Pellicano faced a prison term ranging from 27 to 33 months. U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian split the difference and also fined him $6,000.

But that does not mark the end of Pellicano’s legal woes. He remains the target of a wide-ranging federal investigation into illicit wiretapping and a separate probe of a criminal threat made against a Los Angeles Times reporter.

The explosive devices that resulted in his conviction were discovered in a locked safe during an FBI raid on his Sunset Boulevard offices in November 2002. The agents were looking for evidence that might link him to a criminal threat made against Times reporter Anita Busch.

Busch was researching a story about the relationship between actor Steven Seagal and a reputed Mafia figure when someone fired a bullet through the windshield of her unoccupied car. Left on top of the vehicle were a dead fish with a rose in its mouth and a sign reading: “Stop.”

Alexander Proctor, a drug-dealing ex-convict, was subsequently charged with carrying out the threat. In secretly recorded conversations with an FBI informant, he allegedly said he had been hired by Pellicano to scare Busch.

Pellicano and Seagal have denied any involvement in the threat, and neither has been charged in the case.

At Friday’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Atty. Kevin Lally urged Tevrizian to sentence Pellicano to 33 months in prison, citing, among other reasons, his suspected involvement in the threat against Busch.

But Tevrizian rejected that argument. To do so, he said, would create the possibility of double jeopardy if Pellicano is eventually indicted in that case or the developing wiretapping probe.

Pellicano, whose clients have included a who’s who of Hollywood stars, from Elizabeth Taylor to Michael Jackson, went on trial on the weapons charges in October. A few days into the proceedings, however, he negotiated a plea deal in the face of overwhelming prosecution evidence.

The 59-year-old defendant voluntarily surrendered to authorities to begin serving his term in November, two months ahead of his scheduled sentencing. In court Friday, however, Pellicano sought to withdraw his guilty plea on the hand grenade charge, a felony. The plastic explosives count was a misdemeanor.

Defense lawyer Donald Re cited a recent U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling which, he said, found that Congress did not have power to regulate homemade weapons under the Constitution’s commerce clause. The hand grenades in question were considered homemade because they had been converted from practice grenades.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Daniel Saunders countered that the law banning possession of the grenades was based on Congress’ power to tax, not on its authority to regulate interstate commerce. Tevrizian sided with the prosecution.

Re said afterward that he intends to appeal the ruling, as well as an earlier denial of a defense motion to suppress the evidence seized by the FBI from Pellicano’s office. In addition to the grenades and plastic explosives, agents also confiscated Pellicano’s vast computer files. Their contents are believed to be central in the developing wiretapping probe.

The defense lawyer also lost a bid to spare Pellicano from a fine. He said his client has placed his dwindling assets into a trust to care for his children. Lally contended, however, that exempting Pellicano from a fine would make a mockery of the justice system.

He said Pellicano’s request was “akin to Dennis Kozlowski [the free-spending former head of Tyco International] saying he can’t afford to pay a fine because his wife’s birthday is coming up.”