U.S. prosecutors, Pellicano’s lawyers spar over evidence

In their most contentious court hearing to date, federal prosecutors and defense attorneys in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case sparred Monday over whether the government’s conduct in the long-running investigation should invalidate crucial evidence, including a search warrant for the onetime private eye’s offices.

With only two months before the scheduled start of trial, U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer said she would hold one in-chambers hearing over the handling of audio recordings seized from Pellicano’s Sunset Strip offices. Fischer also said she would rule within days on whether a separate courtroom session was warranted into the government’s conduct in the case and particularly the actions of veteran FBI Agent Stanley Ornellas.

For months, attorneys for Pellicano and his five co-defendants have accused the government of misconduct, focusing particularly on Ornellas’ sworn account of evidence used to obtain a search warrant. Pellicano lawyer Michael Artan was among several defense lawyers Monday to accuse the 35-year FBI veteran of knowingly including false information in the warrant, or omitting from the document other exonerating facts he knew to be true.

“Agent Ornellas does not have clean hands,” Artan said near the outset of a two-hour hearing. “He lied.” Artan said Ornellas used an unreliable informant and embellished details of a threat against a former Los Angeles Times reporter to secure a search warrant at Pellicano’s office. The phony details, he said, included allegations that the front windshield of the reporter’s vehicle had been shattered by a gunshot when no bullet was ever found by the Los Angeles Police Department.

“This is the Los Angeles Police Department, not the Mayberry Sheriff’s Department,” Artan said. “If there had been anything to suggest a bullet, there would be forensic testing.”

“It is clearly an agent trying to deceive the . . . judge,” said attorney Terree Bowers, who is representing well-known entertainment attorney Terry Christensen, who is accused of hiring Pellicano to do wiretaps.

But prosecutors Daniel Saunders and Kevin Lally challenged the accusations, insisting that defense attorneys had fallen far short of proving that Ornellas misled the courts or engaged in the sort of “deliberate or reckless” behavior needed to prove misconduct.

“There are no lies, there are no misrepresentations,” Saunders told the judge. To the contrary, he said, evidence in the case illustrates that Ornellas is “an ethical and experienced” agent unfairly maligned by the defense.

In addition to the rulings about Ornellas’ conduct and the government’s handling of audiotapes, Fischer also is expected to rule on other defense motions, including one that seeks to have the case dismissed because of a panoply of alleged government missteps.

Though her comments at Monday’s hearing suggested that she may not grant the defense requests for a hearing on Ornellas’ conduct, Fischer last month agreed to a hearing on allegations that the agent improperly used Pellicano’s former girlfriend to collect information from the private eye when he was in prison on explosives charges. Authorities have denied that accusation.

greg.krikorian@latimes.com