Judge upholds charge against former officer

A federal judge has turned down a request from a former LAPD officer to dismiss a felony charge accusing him of lying to prosecutors and the FBI about his involvement in the alleged wiretapping conspiracy led by onetime private investigator Anthony Pellicano.

In an eight-page ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer said that attorneys for former Sgt. Mark Arneson had failed to prove that the government breached an agreement by indicting the officer for allegedly making false statements during a July 2003 meeting with authorities.

Arneson’s lawyers had argued that authorities were required to give their client notice if they intended to charge him with lying about anything said during the interview. In her ruling, Fischer noted that the lawyers also argued their client’s comments “viewed in context” were not false.

But the judge ruled that authorities had no such obligation. Fischer also said that Arneson’s attorneys had offered no evidence to back up their claims that an FBI agent’s notes of the meeting were inaccurate.

“Indeed,” Fischer said, “Arneson’s [court] papers suggest that he did make some false statements” to authorities.

Arneson is among five co-defendants charged along with Pellicano in a long-running federal investigation of alleged wiretapping and other illegal methods to gain advantage for clients in lawsuits and other disputes. The former officer is specifically accused of illegally accessing confidential Los Angeles Police Department databases to gain personal information, including any criminal records, on the targets of the onetime Hollywood private investigator.

All of the defendants have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial in February.

To date, five people have pleaded guilty to hiring or helping Pellicano including “Die Hard” film director John McTiernan. Last week, he was sentenced to four months in federal prison for lying to the FBI about paying Pellicano $50,000 to wiretap a film producer.

greg.krikorian@latimes.com