Pellicano threats alleged

In another day of dramatic courtroom confrontations, an actress told a federal jury Wednesday that she received a terrifying telephone call threatening her son shortly after she spoke with the FBI about its wiretapping investigation of private eye Anthony Pellicano.

Testifying as a government witness, Linda Doucett said an anonymous male caller in November 2003 warned her to remain silent after she had been interviewed by authorities about their probe of Pellicano for alleged wiretapping and other crimes on behalf of rich and famous clients.

Doucett testified that the threatening call came shortly after she had spoken to then-FBI Agent Stan Ornellas, the lead investigator in the Pellicano case, and had been contacted by a Los Angeles Times reporter about the government’s inquiry.

“That night, I got a phone call,” Doucett said, recalling how a man with a voice she did not recognize told her: “If you talk to your friend Stan or the press, you won’t be seeing your child anymore.”

At the time, the FBI had seized a mountain of documents and other evidence from Pellicano’s Sunset Strip offices that allegedly showed the infamous investigator engaged in wiretaps and illegal searches of law enforcement computers.

Authorities have alleged that Doucett was investigated by Pellicano because she was the former girlfriend of comedian Garry Shandling, who had sued his ex-manager, Brad Grey, in a bitter business dispute. Grey, now head of Paramount Pictures, was represented in the lawsuit by well-known entertainment attorney Bert Fields, who had frequently used Pellicano as an investigator. Both Grey and Fields, who are expected to testify at the trial, have denied any knowledge of Pellicano’s alleged wrongdoing.

After the phone call, Doucett said, she locked the doors to her home and kept her young son near her before calling an entertainment executive friend, who advised her to contact the FBI.

Acting as his own attorney, Pellicano cross-examined Doucett and challenged her conclusion that he was somehow connected to the threatening phone call.

How did she know it was him, Pellicano asked.

“In my heart, I did,” Doucett responded. “You are the only bad guy I’ve known” who knew so many details about her life.

Pausing, she looked directly at Pellicano and added: “Why did you investigate me?”

Earlier, another alleged target of a Pellicano investigation also testified about anonymous threats that she linked to Pellicano and said he bullied her during an ugly divorce seven years ago from her wealthy husband, the late financier Leonard I. Green, then a client of Pellicano’s.

Jude Green said that she received a phone call at her home in February 2001 from a man warning her: “Keep your mouth shut, for your sake and your family’s.”

Green also testified that someone harassed her in May 2001 at a pet grooming shop in Santa Monica and at a coffee house.

Two years later, when Pellicano was arrested and his photograph appeared in The Times, Green testified, she recognized the man who had harassed her.

It was Pellicano, she said.

--

greg.krikorian@latimes.com