Pellicano paid ex-officer for police data, jury told

Anthony Pellicano’s former executive assistant told a federal jury Tuesday that a former LAPD sergeant provided confidential police records for years with “no questions asked” to the onetime private investigator.

The testimony of Lily LeMasters bolstered government claims that former Sgt. Mark Arneson was part of a web of corruption spun by Pellicano on behalf of his rich and famous clients. LeMasters’ allegations came only days after another former Pellicano employee testified that the indicted private eye paid off cops and others, including a onetime telephone company employee, to wiretap and intimidate targets of his pricey investigations.

Both of Pellicano’s former employees, testifying under grants of immunity, are considered key witnesses in the federal prosecution because they spent years working in his Sunset Strip offices and have outlined -- sometimes in great detail -- sweeping allegations of wrongdoing. Pellicano and his co-defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of wiretapping, racketeering and other crimes.

LeMasters, for example, testified that the former Los Angeles Police Department sergeant went to Pellicano’s offices about twice a month during the nearly five years she worked there, beginning in 1996. It was early in her employment, she said, that she learned that Arneson was a paid source of information for Pellicano who would provide criminal rap sheets and DMV records on names or license plates the private investigator would provide him.

Once the information was provided by Arneson, LeMasters testified, she and others in the office would retype the confidential data onto special forms that became part of Pellicano’s files on investigative targets; and the hand-delivered or faxed copies of the actual records, bearing Arneson’s name, would be shredded.

Ultimately, she told the jury, Pellicano’s office would develop criminal dossiers on targets using the information provided by Arneson and confidential records from other sources, such as a Florida man nicknamed Bad Billy, who provided credit reports.

LeMasters’ testimony directly contradicted one assertion by Arneson: that he had no idea why Pellicano wanted the names searched on databases and did so only because Pellicano was a trusted police source on criminal activity.

She testified that Arneson provided the information because he was paid by Pellicano and knew of at least some of the cases the investigator was pursuing, such as an effort to determine who was tailing actor Tom Cruise at one point.

LeMasters’ account echoed many of the allegations raised by another former Pellicano employee, Tarita Virtue, who spent nearly four days on the witness stand. Like Virtue, LeMasters testified that Pellicano wanted the work done for him by Arneson, former SBC employee Ray Turner and another ex-cop, Craig Stevens of the Beverly Hills Police Department, to be kept secret, with no records of their calls or visits entered in the office logs.

Stevens pleaded guilty two years ago to federal charges in the case. Arneson and Turner, like Pellicano, have denied the government’s allegations.

Earlier Tuesday, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Karla Kerlin completed her testimony in the case, telling the jury that she believed Pellicano had improperly pried into the backgrounds of numerous women who had accused one of his clients, a wealthy businessman, of serial rape. He was later acquitted.

Responding directly to Pellicano during cross-examination because he is acting as his own attorney at trial, Kerlin said she believed Pellicano was also targeting her to dig up any embarrassing information or uncover secrets about her case.

“I definitely felt you were looking into my personal background,” she told Pellicano, “and somehow knew what I was doing.”

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greg.krikorian@latimes.com