Pellicano came after me too

LAST WEEK’S news that former private investigator Anthony Pellicano was indicted for allegedly wiretapping Hollywood journalists, among others, came as a personal vindication. I was told that I was the subject of similar surveillance in late 1994 -- by Don Simpson, the man who said he paid Pellicano to do it.

We were drinking cocktails at the Hotel Bel-Air. Simpson, producer of such hits as “Flashdance,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Top Gun,” was Hollywood’s brashest bad boy and one of its most aggressive gossips, first to know what movie studio was about to be sold, what exec was about to be fired or what Hollywood madam was about to be arrested. As a correspondent for Newsweek, I found him to be a valuable source.

It was a heady time to be covering Hollywood. Sony’s Columbia Pictures was collapsing under the weight of bloated film budgets and blotto film executives. Universal Pictures was being sold to Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Michael S. Ovitz of Creative Artists Agency and Jeff Berg of International Creative Management were battling for control of the town’s talent business. The Michael Eisner-Jeffrey Katzenberg marriage at Disney was turning into an ugly public divorce. Heidi Fleiss, Hollywood’s most notorious “madam” and one of Simpson’s closest confidantes, was under investigation. She and her “black book,” containing names of some of the industry’s biggest actors, agents and executives, were headed for the courtroom.

There was a lot to talk about. But as the evening wore on, Simpson grew irritable. He had been the subject of multiple stinging magazine profiles. He expected his name to come up again, unflatteringly, if Fleiss stayed in the headlines. So he was going to fight back.

“I’m sick of reporters snooping around,” he said to me. “So a bunch of us have gotten together. We’ve created an ‘anti-journalist’ fund, and we’ve got Anthony Pellicano working for us. The next time we hear one of you guys is investigating us, we’re going use him to push the limits of litigation and investigation -- to do whatever is necessary to cause trouble for whatever reporter is causing trouble for us.”

Just bluster? Simpson had drunk several glasses of Glenfiddich. He glared at me and told me to watch my back. I laughed and said I would.

Soon after, a friend called. “I heard something. Simpson told me he was going to have Pellicano take care of you.”

Pellicano had been a Hollywood fixture for years, and he made no secret of his methods. He carried a Louisville Slugger in the trunk of his car, and he’d already frightened journalists on Simpson’s behalf. Pellicano learned that a reporter who was preparing a story about Simpson and Hollywood’s madams had been accused of domestic violence in a child-custody suit with his ex-wife. Simpson instructed Pellicano to threaten the journalist with public exposure if he did not drop his reporting.

Shortly after, another reporter was looking into the relationship between Fleiss and officers at Columbia Pictures. Feeling paranoid, the reporter told a source, “From now on, when I call, I am going to use the name Ted Williams.” Within days, the reporter had a call from Pellicano, who told the reporter to back off and said, “By the way, Ted Williams is a stupid name to use.”

I didn’t wait to find out what Simpson and Pellicano would dig up on me. The Newsweek lawyers and I had a conference call with Simpson and his attorney, who both denied there was any “anti-journalist” fund or any campaign against reporters. Simpson invited me back to the Hotel Bel-Air. We were joined, late that night, by a Penthouse Pet turned B-movie actress. Simpson said he’d paid $5,000 for a night of passion with the actress, and he offered to purchase the same treat for me. I declined, but clearly all was forgiven.

A week later, I was sipping espresso in Pellicano’s red-velvet-draped office on the Sunset Strip, listening to Italian opera while waiting for him. He came in admiring his taste in music. “What can I tell you?” he said. “I’m Sicilian!”

Pellicano denied conducting surveillance on me or any other reporter. He was an internationally respected “audio forensics expert,” he said. Would he jeopardize his career over a film producer and some hookers? But he left me with a warning: Lay off Simpson.

“I love him like a brother,” he said, “and I will do anything necessary to protect him.”

All the Pellicanos in the world couldn’t protect Simpson from himself. He died of drug-induced heart failure in January 1996.

Now Pellicano may find himself undone too -- and, like Simpson, by his own hand. It is nicely ironic that his legal troubles began when he got caught up in an investigation of threats against a former Los Angeles Times reporter, Anita M. Busch. With wiretapping in the headlines, Pellicano’s alleged peccadilloes remind us that surreptitious surveillance is a dicey business -- and that reporters usually have the last word.