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Pellicano, Private Investigator & Felon

Nov 03, 2020

Anthony Pellicano Private Investigator

And Felon. The wild ride story that involves A list Hollywood celebrities, racketeering, wiretapping, home made grenades & a dead fish. 

Anthony Pellicano was a LA Based Private Investigator whom served A list celebrities and other wealthy clients. Quickly building a reputation as a fixer and a man who gets the job done. A loner who's only social interaction came from his wife & kids. He quickly began acting out of character when his only social support structure came crumbling down around him when he left the family home.




Unfortunately around the same time he began acting out of character and taking increasing risks with his work, investigative journalist Anita Busch was digging into one of his Private Clients. In a desperate bid to stop her in her tracks someone (hm) placed a bullet through her windshield, a dead fish on the bonnet and left a message saying "Stop".


This was the beginning of the end for Anthony. He didn't know it at the time.

Pellicano's clients had been top tier stars and wealthy individuals which have allegedly included Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson Keith Carradine, Vincent Bo Zenga and others.

Downfall

Following the incident with the vehicle, another threat was made against a Julius Nasso, subsequently the police took action and raided Pellicano's home on 21/11/2002.


Inside they found C4 explosives & modified grenades. He was immediately arrested subsequently sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleasing guilty on 04/08/2003, with a release date of 04/03/2006.


Towards the end of his sentence, presumably after investigating through out the time he spent in prison he was further charged with an additional 110 charges on 06/02/2006. These were primarily repeated offences of a similar nature. On 15/02/2006 he was charged with further offences again, this also included extortion.


Some of the charges are explained below:

The background

An impressive array of witnesses came to his eventual trial in 2008 including Chris Rock and the CEO of Paramount studios.


He was found guilty of 76/77 charges that went all the way through the courts. He was given an additional 15 years however he only ever served 16 years in total and was released 22/03/2019.


He never spoke out or gave information about his clients, retaining confidentiality. He now works as a negotiator  which does involve the gathering of information however he is banned from operating as a Private Investigator as part of his early release.




No doubt a legend in his own right, however routinely crossing the line cost him dearly. It is a shame that much of the most prominent PI's appear to end up being killed or jailed, I guess they make the best stories. However a boon he retained was not informing on his clients and as such it seems he has been able to quite easily re-open albeit under a different heading for his enterprise but not overly dissimilar line of work as his reward. I believe him retaining long term records of his findings was his undoing, no doubt he would have still been charged however the charges would have been fewer and perhaps resulted in a smaller sentence.

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