Hollywood wiretapping scandal
"DETECTIVE'S EMPLOYER KNEW ABOUT HIS SLEUTHING DEVICE
By David M. Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner
"LOS ANGELES, Feb. 11 - Throughout the three-year federal investigation
of Anthony Pellicano, the celebrity detective at the center of a huge
Hollywood wiretapping scandal, the top-tier entertainment lawyer Bert
Fields and his firm have insisted that they never knew their go-to
investigator was secretly recording his targets' phone calls.
"But an indictment unsealed this week makes clear that Mr. Field's
firm, which frequently deployed Mr. Pellicano to dig up dirt on its
legal opponents, also played a central role in his pursuit of a
trademark for the very device the government says he was using to
wiretap his targets: a combination of computer hardware and software he
called, aptly enough, Telesleuth.
"Brian Sun, a lawyer for Mr. Field's firm, Greenburg, Glusker, Fields,
Claman, Machtinger & Kinsella, said its lawyers believed that Mr.
Pellicano intended to use Telesleuth on behalf of his many
law-enforcement clients. Mr. Sun said the firm also believed that
Telesleuth could not be used as a wiretapping device, although the
participant in a call could use it to record a conversation.
"'It would be ludicrous to suggest that the firm or any of its lawyers
would ever have associated themselves with any wiretapping activity,'
Mr. Sun said.
"Mr. Sun, who said he was speaking on Mr. Fields's behalf in this
regard, said Mr. Fields may have brought Mr. Pellicano's request to the
firm, but that he did not work on the trademark matters.
"Mr. Pellicano pleaded not guilty to wiretapping and other charges on
Monday.
"Precisely what the firm knew about Mr. Pellicano's intentions for the
Telesleuth device has been the subject of intense interest by
prosecutors, however: a lawyer in the case confirmed that the
government had subpoenaed documents arising from Mr. Pellicano's puruit
of the Telesleuth trademark, and that his lawyers had resisted handing
over at least some of them.
"By the mid-1990's, Mr. Pellicano, through one of his companies,
Forensic Audio Labs, had become one of the nation's foremost expert
witnesses in analyzing audiotapes, often for prosecutors in
organized-crime cases involving court-ordered wiretaps.
"But federal prosecutors here now say that in 1995, Mr. Pellicano
sought to conduct his own wiretaps, without court orders. He quietly
hired a self-taught computer programmer, Kevin Kachikian -- who also
pleaded not guilty to federal charges on Monday -- to develop software
for intercepting phone calls.
"By the fall, Mr. Pellicano's idea had advanced as far as coming up
with a brand name: Telesleuth. He wanted to trademark the name, so he
turned to a law firm he knew well: Greenberg, Glusker. Its most famous
partner, Mr. Fields, had already worked closely with Mr. Pellicano. On
Nov. 6, 1995, a lawyer there, Jill A. Cossman, applied on Mr.
Pellicano's behalf for a trademark with the United States Patent and
Trademark Office.
" According to prosecutors, Mr. Pellicano had engineering work done the
following March to finish the hardware for Telesleuth, and in January
1997 he began bribing a phone company worker to help him. In May 1997,
the two used Telesleuth to wiretap a Los Angeles real estate developer,
Robert Maguire.
"Two months later, Mr. Pellicano -- this time using the Greenberg,
Glusker lawyer Michael K. Grace, who left the firm in 1999 -- applied
for a second trademark, for a program called Forensic Audio Sleuth,
also designed by Mr. Kachikian, that can play back and enhance the
quality of audio recordings. On his Web site, Mr. Kachakian, whose
lawyer did not return calls on Friday, boasts that Mr. Pellicano used
it in the trail of Eric and Lyle Menendez, in 1993, and on behalf of
Michael Jackson.
"Mr. Pellicano successfully registered the Forensic Audio Sleuth
trademark in January 2000. But his trademark application for Telesleuth
was abandoned in Februrary 2000, after Mr. Pellicano and his lawyers
had received a fifth and final six-month extension from the trademark
office. In order to register the Telesleuth trademark, experts say,
they would have had to show that the mark was being used in ongoing
commerce.
"Although Mr. Pellicano never submitted evidence of his marketing of
the Telesleuth name, the federal indictment and interviews show he was
actively using the device. In September 1997, prosecutors say, he began
using it to wiretap Mark R. Hughes, the founder of Herbalife, and he
used Telesleuth in at least two other wiretaps over the next year.
"But Mr. Pellicano and Mr. Kachakian may have encountered some glitches
with Telesleuth early on. In 1999, Mr. Pellicano had Immuneal
Manufacturing of Philidelphia make a container to shield Mr.
Kachakian's printed circuit boards from electromagnetic fields. One
expert on telephony suggested that those fields could be generated by
power lines that run near telephone switch boxes. After some
modifications, Mr. Pellicano ordered 24 more of those containers in
July 2000, said Larry Maltin, the company's president.
"Over the next 18 months, Mr. Pellicano's business boomed, and he
installed at least nine more Telesleuth wiretaps, prosecutors say. In
early 2002, Mr. Pellicano paid Mr. Kachakian $13,425 for his work on
the project. And before Mr. Pellicano's work was interrupted by a
federal raid on his Sunset Strip offices that November, he installed
another two wiretaps -- one on actor Sylvester Stallone, another on a
Los Angeles Times reporter, Anita Busch.
"A month later, prosecutors say, Mr. Kachakian destroyed computer
files, hardware and software relating to Telesleuth.
"On his Web site though, Mr. Kachakian still proudly lists his work on
behalf of Mr. Pellicano. The Web site does not mention Telesleuth by
name. But Mr. Kachakian's resume does note that he designed a
'telephony hardware interface and control software.'"
The end.
Reg Curtis
VE9RWC
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:16 CST
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