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By Greg Risling, Associated Press LOS ANGELES - Former
baseball player Matt Williams testified Thursday that he
refused an offer from private investigator Anthony Pellicano
to wiretap the phone of his second wife.
"It's an illegal act," Williams testified.
Williams was the first prosecution witness called in the
wiretapping trial of Pellicano and four co-defendants.
Prosecutors said Pellicano, 63, was the architect of a
thriving criminal enterprise that raked in more than
$2 million by spying on Hollywood's rich and famous then
supplying the dirt to their rivals.
Clients "would pay a premium fee to discredit, and in some
cases destroy, their adversaries," Assistant U.S. Attorney
Kevin Lally said in his opening statement.
Among those allegedly targeted by the scheme were Sylvester
Stallone and comedians Garry Shandling and Kevin
Nealon.
Williams, whose 17-year baseball career was spent mostly with
the San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks, testified
that he paid Pellicano $25,000 in December 2001 to
investigate his first wife because he was concerned about the
safety of their three children.
Within a month, Williams and Pellicano talked about the
possible monitoring of his then-wife, Michelle Johnson, who
was living in Los Angeles, apart from her husband.
Prosecutors played a recorded conversation between the two
men in which Pellicano suggests he could "keep an eye" on
Johnson by listening to her private conversations. Williams
said he didn't know he was being recorded by Pellicano.
In the portion of the tape played, Williams didn't explicitly
say he didn't want to wiretap the phone.
Instead, at one point Williams tells Pellicano: "I need to
think about it."
Williams said Thursday he didn't know he was being recorded
by Pellicano.
Williams, a five-time All-Star who retired in 2003, is among
dozens of players named in December in the Mitchell Report as
having used performance-enhancing drugs. He now works as a
broadcaster for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The recording is one of more than 70 audio recordings
prosecutors intend to introduce as evidence against
Pellicano, who is accused of wiretapping phones and bribing
police and telephone workers to intercept conversations that
could give his clients an advantage in legal disputes.
Lally called Pellicano a prolific snoop who also taped his
own discussions with clients. He said a treasure trove of
recordings seized during a 2000 FBI raid on Pellicano's
office paint a "clear and crystal" picture of the detective's
shady dealings.
In that sense, "he's the biggest government informant in this
case," Lally said.
Pellicano, acting as his own attorney, spoke for only 10
minutes during his opening statement, contending he recorded
and encrypted his own calls only as a way to create a
referencing system.
Because he was acting as his own lawyer, Pellicano was told
by the court to refer to himself in the third person when he
addressed jurors.
"His presumption was that these conversations would be made
available to no one but him," Pellicano told the panel.
He also said he prided himself on being a secretive person
who treated the problems of his clients as his own.
Lally said Pellicano took extreme measures to cloak his
alleged illegal activities, recruiting senior law enforcement
officers and telephone company employees who didn't need much
supervision, then talking to them in code.
In addition, he rigged a wiretapping software program known
as Telesleuth so no one else could access the recordings,
Lally said.
Omerta, an Italian word meaning code of silence, was used as
a password.
Among those allegedly enlisted by Pellicano were retired Los
Angeles police Sgt. Mark Arneson and former telephone company
employee Rayford Earl Turner. Other co-defendants in the case
are Kevin Kachikian and Abner Nicherie. All have pleaded not
guilty.
Seven people have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges
including perjury and conspiracy. Six of the seven, including
film director John McTiernan and former Hollywood Records
president Robert Pfeifer, are expected to be called as
witnesses.
Attorneys for Arneson and Turner told jurors the evidence
won't show that their clients were part of a criminal
enterprise, and that they didn't even know each other before
they were arrested two years ago.
Arneson may have crossed a line by providing a
"shortcut" for Pellicano in searching government databases,
but he wasn't a corrupt officer and was paid by the private
detective for legitimate private security work, attorney Chad
Hummel said.
Adam Braun, who represents Kachikian, said in his opening
statement that Pellicano hired his client to develop the
eavesdropping software.
Braun said Kachikian thought the software would be marketed
to law enforcement agencies: "He didn't know it was going to
be misused on wiretaps."
Pellicano could provide some fireworks when he cross-examines
some of his former clients and employees. Federal prosecutors
filed a list of 127 potential witnesses that included
Stallone, Chris Rock and Shandling. It was not clear,
however, how many people would actually testify.
Other prominent Hollywood players on the potential witness
list include one-time Walt Disney Co. president and agent
Michael Ovitz; Brad Grey, chairman and chief executive
officer of Paramount Pictures; and Ron Meyer, president and
chief executive officer of Universal Studios.
The trial is expected to last about 10 weeks.
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