Mr. Pellicano stayed strong today, despite his seat directly in front
of the projector which is used to show evidence to the jury. When the
projector isn't being used, the light shines directly into Mr.
Pellicano's eyes--no doubt an attempt by Mr. Saunders to elicit some
sort of confession. But, despite being almost blinded by the light and
glistening with sweat at times, Mr. Pellicano has shown no sign that
he's ready to throw in the towel. In fact, his cross of F.B.I.
witnesses was spirited today, despite having spent much of their direct
testimony under the lights.
Mr. Pellicano's former employee, Lily LeMasters, spent a good portion
of the day on the stand--over hour testifying for the government. Her
demeanor was cold and detached and she avoided eye contact with Mr.
Pellicano--who really couldn't see her any way because of the lights
from the projection screen.
During her direct testimony, Ms. LeMasters, who maybe smiled once
during the entire day, admitted to listening to wiretapped recordings
between Mr. Robert Maguire, a real estate developer, and his suspected
girlfriend at the time, Rosa. Ms. LeMasters said that Mr. Pellicano's
client at the time was Mrs. Susan Maguire, Mr. Maguire's estranged
wife who was then in a contentious divorce proceeding
with him. Ms. LeMasters also recalled listening to intercepted phone
calls in the case called "Kissy" by Mr. Pellicano. Ms. LeMasters
recalled that the now deceased attorney, Ed Masry, hired Mr. Pellicano
after a young lawyer, Kissandra Cohen, sued him for sexual harassment.
She also remembered that Susan Hughes, the ex-wife of Herbalife CEO
Mark Hughes, hired the Pellicano agency to "get more money after her
divorce" listening in on calls of Herbalife CEO, Mark Hughes. She
recalled listening to some of Mr. Hughes' wiretapped conversations
while working for Mr. Pellicano. She also recalled doing work for
Farrah Fawcett by obtaining the DMV history and criminal history of her
ex-boyfriend at the time.
On cross-examination, Chad Hummel, who represents former LAPD officer
Mark Arneson, spent time trying to establish that Ms. LeMasters never
saw his client engage in any wiretapping activities at the Pellicano
office. While Ms. LeMasters admitted that she never saw Mr. Arneson
engage in wiretapping, she claimed that Mr. Arneson did know quite a
bit about some of Mr. Pellicano's clients and why they needed DMV and
criminal history information. When pressed for names by Mr. Hummel,
Ms. LeMasters gave him an answer he probably could have done without.
She noted that Mr. Arneson knew when he looked up some license plate
numbers that he was checking out a person who was allegedly following
actor Tom Cruise. Saying that she didn't remember whether it was Mr.
Cruise or his attorney, Bert Fields, who hired Mr. Pellicano, she
alleged that Mr. Arneson was specifically asked to run some license
plate numbers of a person believed to be following Mr. Cruise.
Ms. LeMasters testimony today actually ended up being a little duller
than what she told the F.B.I. While she told the court today that Brad
Grey, now head of Paramount Studios, came to the office a couple of
times, she left out a lot of what she'd told the F.B.I. According to
Ms. LeMasters' 302 (notes taken by F.B.I. agent Stan Ornellas during an
August 6, 2003 interview), Ms. LeMasters told the F.B.I. that she
recognized the name Brad Grey as a Pellicano client and "decribed him
as 'very arrogant.'" According to the report, Ms. LeMasters did not
know the details of the case, but she saw "Grey in Pellicano's office
on approximately two occasions." Ms. LeMasters also told the F.B.I.
that Mr. Pellicano went to Mr. Grey's office on three or four
occasions. (Mr. Grey has stated on several occasions that he was
unaware that Mr. Pellicano was engaged in any illegal activity.)
Ms. LeMasters was also not asked by the government to discuss at length
Mr. Pellicano's relationship with various attorneys who retained his
services. She didn't mention, as she did in her 302, that Mr.
Pellicano would personally call attorney Bert Fields "all the time and
he would normally go to Field's office." Nor was she asked on the
stand about her statement to the F.B.I. that she estimated "that
Pellicano received approximately 45% of his business from the Greenberg
Glusker law firm."
And so, tomorrow, things should get a bit more intriguing. Mr.
Saunders announced at the end of today that he'd be calling several
more witnesses in the Shandling matter, including Linda Doucett, Mr.
Shandling's former girlfriend. And, he's also going to be calling Jane
Doe #8, an alleged rape victim in the John Gordon Jones criminal trial,
who the government claims was targeted by Mr. Pellicano on behalf of
his then client, John Gordon Jones.
Read all HuffPost's reports from inside the Pellicano courtroom