Hollywood- Anthony Pellicano, the so-called private eye to the stars, masterminded a “thriving criminal enterprise” that used illegal wiretapping and bribery to squash the legal problems of Hollywood’s rich and famous, a prosecutor told a Los Angeles court yesterday.

Anthony Pellicano is accused of bribery and illegal wiretapping
A jury in the long-awaited trial, expected to feature numerous celebrity witnesses, heard how greed and ambition allegedly drove Pellicano to create an elaborate infrastructure for digging up dirt on the ex-wives, lovers, business partners and rivals of his wealthy clients.

“This is a case about corruption in some of society’s most fundamental systems – the police department, the telephone company and the legal system,” prosecutor Kevin Lally said as he outlined the case against Pellicano and four co-defendants.

The investigators’ clients “would pay a premium fee to discredit, and in some cases destroy, their adversaries,” Mr Lally added.

Pellicano’s victims ranged from women who had been raped to cheating spouses and a troublesome screenwriter, the prosecutor claimed during opening statements of a trial that has kept much of Hollywood on tenterhooks for almost six years.

The 63-year-old investigator, who has been refused bail and is representing himself, is accused of running a criminal enterprise that bugged phones and bribed police and telephone workers to run illegal background checks on the targets of his investigations.

Pellicano, wearing prison issue clothes, told the jury he was a problem solver who had extensive contacts in the law enforcement community and was “loved” by his wealthy clients because he produced results.

“Primarily what I did was to serve clients in problem solving,” the investigator said in his opening statement.

He has already served jail time for possessing weapons and explosives that were discovered in his Sunset Strip offices during a police raid but has pleaded not guilty, along with his four co-defendants, to the 111 federal charges the five are facing.

Mr Lally said Pellicano “had out-sized ambitions only matched by out-sized desire for fame and fortune.” His computer and other security passwords included the word “omerta” – the Sicilian Mafia word meaning silence.

Celebrities including Sylvester Stallone, Keith Carradine, Chris Rock, Garry Shandling and Farrah Fawcett, along with studio executives Brad Grey and Ron Meyer and former super-agent Michael Ovitz are among more than 120 prosecution witnesses expected to testify during the 10-week trial.

Some of the witnesses, including Stallone, were targets of wiretaps; some worked for Pellicano and others agreed to testify after gaining immunity from prosecution, Mr Lally said.

Pellicano has worked for lawyers who represented Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor.

Most of his celebrity clients have denied knowing anything about the allegedly illegal activity.

Trial watchers are anticipating lively confrontations when Pellicano cross-examines his former clients.

It is estimated the investigator and his co-defendants collected nearly two million dollars from what prosecutors describe as a racketeering scheme.

To date, 14 people have been charged in matters connected to the case. Seven have already pleaded guilty to a variety of charges including perjury and conspiracy. Six of those seven, including film director John McTiernan and former Hollywood Records president Robert Pfeifer, are expected to be called as witnesses.

The initial probe into Pellicano’s activities began in 2002 after Anita Busch, then a Los Angeles Times reporter, found a dead fish, a rose and a note saying “STOP” on her car.

According to court papers, Ms Busch’s name had been raised in a conversation between Pellicano and Michael Ovitz about what Ovitz believed were negative press stories about him at the time.

Before his indictment, Pellicano was often called on by law enforcement as an expert witness on audio recordings. The investigator has implied he plans to raise questions about the government’s own use of wiretaps and ask jurors if they have “any questions” about official methods of surveillance.