April
9
Pellicano Trial: It's Gaspar on Campus
I finally schlepped down to the Anthony Pellicano criminal trial in downtown L.A. on Wednesday at 8 AM, sitting with other folks who've been tracking it all along, like the LAT's Rachel Abramowitz, the NYT's David Halbfinger, Portfolio's Fred Schruers, and our own Marc Graser, who reports here. Apparently there were more watchers in the Temple St. courthouse gallery than there have been since the beginning. And there was plenty of fireworks.
While the room is fairly high-tech, with two big plasma screens and monitors showing the various exhibits-- like Pellicano's LAPD database searches and surveillance records of ex-journalist Anita Busch and her collaborator at the NYT, Bernard Weinraub, who both testified on Wednesday-- the reporters sitting on hard wood benches were scribbling madly with pen and paper. (UPDATE: Janet Shprintz analyzes the government's case, which wrapped Thursday.)
Ovitz, wearing a dapper purple tie and glasses, brought me back to the waning days of his 2002 stint at Artists Management Group, when he was so upset by the damaging and "wildly embarrassing" articles being written in the NYT by Busch and Weinraub--as he was readying the company for sale to The Firm-- that he hired Pellicano to get him some info. "He talked to people who source the press," Ovitz explained.
He wanted Pellicano to dig into Universal studio chief Ron Meyer, his former CAA partner, and DreamWorks' David Geffen, whom he suspected of sourcing the stories. Ovitz admitted that he was under enormous pressure--"it was an extremely difficult time"-- and would unburden himself to Pellicano, who was willing to listen, and gave Ovitz the code name "Gaspar" to use when he called. Ovitz said Pellicano was helpful about finding things out around "the campus," what he has always called the entertainment business. "It's very much like high school." Ovitz denied hiring Pellicano to threaten Busch with the dead fish on the car windshield, or doing anything illegal, like wiretaps.
The waterworks came when Busch took the stand. Here's my Variety story. It was painful to watch as the ex-journalist was asked to relive what were clearly still-traumatic experiences. She broke down and was unable to speak several times.
When asked by prosecution attorney Daniel Saunders what happened on June 20, 2002, Busch replied, “I was given a death threat.” She recounted the oft-reported story of how she emerged from her home that morning to find a hole in her Audi’s windshield, an object wrapped in plastic in a baking pan, and a note reading: “Stop.” After a bomb squad cleared the area and blew the object off her dashboard with a water cannon, Busch was told that a dead fish and a rose were in the pan.
She was also nearly run down by a Mercedes, she said, had her files wiped out by a computer virus and her phone tapped. "I was stunned," she said.
Under cross-examination by Pellicano, who was wearing green prison drab and white sneakers, Busch became emotional again. “I was scared 24/7 for my life,” she said. “I didn’t know how I was going to survive financially."
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