Pellicano tapes aired in court

It’s hard out there for a film director. Productions can go millions over budget in days and everyone wants to get paid off for everything, action director John McTiernan lamented in a long-distance phone call from Canada, where he was shooting “Rollerball.”

His caller, private detective Anthony Pellicano, listened sympathetically.

“Now we’re paying off the local fire department,” McTiernan grumbled. “There’s so much corruption, it’s amazing.”

Of course, prosecutors allege that the real reason for this phone call was the corruption the two men were engaged in. According to federal prosecutors, McTiernan hired Pellicano to run wiretaps for him, and this phone conversation -- captured on tape and aired in a federal courthouse Tuesday -- was a chance for the two to confer.

Pellicano complained to McTiernan during the call that he had hours of wiretaps to review. Oh -- and don’t forget to send a check for $25,000, the private investigator reminded him.

Pellicano, on trial for racketeering, wiretapping and other criminal skulduggery, sat calmly in court as prosecutors played the audiotape of his 2000 conversation with McTiernan, which falls into the odd category of being a secretly recorded conversation about information obtained from a wiretapped conversation that the government alleges was illegal.

During the phone call, Pellicano and McTiernan scoffed that movie producer Charles Roven was a “wealthy ne’er-do-well.”

Prosecutors allege that Pellicano, while working for McTiernan, wiretapped Roven.

The taped conversation between Pellicano and McTiernan was played as Roven sat in the witness chair, rocking back and forth, listening expressionlessly.

Later, as Roven left the courthouse, he seemed unfazed by the courtroom drama caused by the tape.

“It’s not the first time I heard it,” he said.

In the conversation, Pellicano moves from conspiratorial -- “There’s nobody in the room listening to this, is there?” he asks McTiernan -- to banal. “So how’s your health?” he asks the director at one point.

McTiernan pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about hiring Pellicano for wiretapping but is now seeking to rescind his plea.

If the overburdened private detective working hard for his employer is the side of Pellicano that comes out on that tape, another recording played in court Tuesday cast him as a more menacing figure.

In that audiotape, according to prosecutors, Pellicano talked to attorney Peter Knecht to pressure him into getting his client, Bilal Baroody, to make good on a $300,000 loan he had not paid back to Universal Studios President Ron Meyer.

In the Sept. 20, 2000, tape, Knecht insists that Baroody is only his friend and no longer his client. He expresses surprise that Baroody owed money to Meyer. But Pellicano persisted.

“He swore on the Koran he was going to make payments,” Pellicano said. “He hasn’t done a . . . thing.” Pellicano warned that Baroody was toying (the private eye’s word was stronger) “with the wrong person.”

“Ron?” asks Knecht.

“Me,” says Pellicano.

Since it started, the trial has been watched closely to see who in Hollywood might tumble alongside Pellicano.

Observers have been curious about what entertainment attorney Bert Fields, who had hired Pellicano, might say under oath in a trial.

So it caused a bit of a stir Tuesday when prosecutors said Fields’ attorney had informed them that if Fields is called to the stand, he will invoke his 5th Amendment right not to testify on grounds that he might incriminate himself.

But in an interview with The Times, Fields said that was not the case.

“I am not going to assert the 5th Amendment; I have nothing to hide,” the lawyer said in a telephone interview. “And I will be glad to testify whenever I am asked.”

Fields’ comments came shortly after U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer called a hearing for Monday about the attorney’s possible testimony in the case.

One of the best-known lawyers in Los Angeles, Fields acknowledged almost five years ago that he had been formally notified he was a “subject” of the federal government’s sweeping investigation of wiretapping and other crimes allegedly committed by Pellicano and co-defendants including former police officers.

No charges have been filed against Fields.

One person who took the stand Tuesday made it clear that he was not only taking responsibility for his involvement with Pellicano, he was also tortured by it.

Under direct examination, former music industry executive Robert Pfeifer, who has already pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting illegal wiretapping, went through his long history of hiring Pellicano.

“I was foolish enough to give him power of attorney,” Pfeifer said in a soft, strained voice.

He also revealed that he gave Pellicano as much as $225,000 to wiretap his ex-girlfriend, Erin Finn, who had given damaging testimony about him at a deposition several years ago.

“The idea was to discredit her and have her eventually recant her testimony,” Pfeifer said. “I thought I was being betrayed. I was an irrational person.”

Pfeifer said on the stand that he was there to redeem himself to a certain extent.

“Like the cliche, I hope the truth sets me free,” he said.

He also said he hoped the prosecutor would recommend leniency for him.

“I know it’s the judge’s decision,” he said, occasionally blotting tears from his eyes. “I hope she gets to know me a little and know I have remorse.”

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carla.hall@latimes.com

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Times staff writer Greg Krikorian contributed to this report.