WEBVTT - Anthony Pellicano Keeps Secrets 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:05.600 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:11.399 Thing from my Heart Radio. Longtime Hollywood private eye and 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:16.840 his term problem solver, Anthony Pellicano lives by a unique 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.040 code of honor, a code that has caused him a 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:25.160 tremendous amount of suffering and loss. In two thousand nineteen, 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:29.640 Pellicano was released from prison after serving a fifteen year 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:35.559 sentence for wire tapping, conspiracy, racketeering, and wire fraud. He 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.040 could have leveraged some of the dirt he had on 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.120 his famous clients in exchange for a shorter sentence, but 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.120 that simply wasn't an option for the Chicago raised and 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:51.120 proudly Sicilian Anthony Pellicano. In the early days, I was 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:55.200 very successful at locating missing people. So my career started 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.960 out really with that and audio surveillance countermeasures, which is, 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.320 you know, devulgating and a wire It's happy. I've got 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:04.880 articles about me and TV shows that it did back 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:09.800 in the seventies, you know, early some Yeah, I did 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.399 a lot of shows, a lot of talk shows. I 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:17.520 moved to California. First case I had was the Lorian case. 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.360 Who contacted you about that? Actually, John de Lorian did. 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.880 I just had moved out there, and my office called 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:26.920 me and told me that he wanted to talk to me. 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:29.840 And I told him that I was in California, and 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.240 they said, well, he's in California. I said, well, fancy 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:36.800 that anyway. So all my clothes and my you know, 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:38.800 furniture and all that were on the way out there 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.000 to be moved in. So I went out and bought 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:43.600 a suit and then went down to a law firm 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:45.720 where there's a bunch of guys sitting around a table 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:52.360 talking about FBI conspiracies, you know, British intelligence conspiracy and 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.200 all that bullshit. And so here's this, you know, a 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.600 little Sicilian kid from Chicago sitting at a table and 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.480 tell they're all full of ship. And I told him 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.360 that the Lorian Cohn, the government, the government con DeLorean 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.720 and the informant on both of them. So came to 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.880 pass that that's exactly what was true. And you know, 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.840 we won. When people wanted to contact you, how did 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.160 they contact you, Well, there were two methods, you know, 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.640 either word or mouth, which you know, after de Lorian 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:27.359 I was a hot ticket, or through attorneys, through agents, 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.080 through you know, personal managers, etcetera. Once I got known, 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.280 then it just spiraled up. You had an office, Yeah, sure, 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.280 I had a a huge office at Sunset. I had 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.400 that office for almost thirty years the Luckman Building. Yeah 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:44.880 you remember, huh. I was told that I was the 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.720 only guy in the building that paid the rent on 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.119 the first of the month every month. Yes. I got 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.280 a big kick out of that. When people would contact you, 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.120 I wonder sometimes like, at what point did you begin 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.960 to feel Because I do believe the research I've done, 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.560 You're obviously a very smart guy. You're a very tough guy. 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:05.320 You're a guy with a lot of principles. You you 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.080 went through hell because of your principles. I mean, you 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.640 really really tortured yourself as in service of your principles. 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.000 And I really believe that we'll see to me, the 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.600 most important thing in my life was honor. In my word, 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.560 it still is till today, because they took everything away, 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.880 and that's what I've got left, and that's all that 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.240 really I really cherish. When I had a client, you know, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.240 and I wanted to work from, they became like a 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.760 member of my family. And nobody works with my family. Right. 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.480 If someone is reaching out to someone in that profession, 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.120 and what they're asking them to do is if not illegal, 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.920 it's dicey, it's illicit in some way. Well let me 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.760 let me stop you right there. Because I was a 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.800 private investigator, but I was really a problem solver, and 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.640 I use investigation as a tool. So when somebody came 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.240 to me, they came to me with a problem, you know, 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.440 And the first thing I did, like I do always, 0:03:57.520 --> 0:03:59.920 I have to define the problem in order to solve it. 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:02.640 And I never told anybody what I was doing. I 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.000 never told attorneys what I were doing. I never told 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.560 clients what I was doing. I never even told my staff. 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.240 You know. I assigned people to different tasks, and nobody 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.480 knew whatever the next guy was doing. You sound like 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.200 a florist. People say I want some flowers, You deliver 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.400 the flowers, don't ask any questions. This is this is 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.120 this goes back to my you know, to my early 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.960 days where you know, that type of attitude was the 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.600 attitude I wanted to keep. What happened in the early 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.279 days that shaped that attitude. Well, I mean, I'm Sicilian, 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:38.800 and all of the attitudes that I attained, I guess 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:43.520 are used and cherished came from that life, and I 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:47.160 still have that attitude. This is an attitude that you 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.559 developed when where you're very young. As a matter of fact, 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.880 I was asked to and have written a novel which 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.400 will come out sometime, I guess in May. It's called 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:03.800 The neighborhoo It and it outlines, you know, the way 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.359 life was for me. Then this is a novel. It's not, 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.200 you know, a biographical thing in any stretch of imagination, 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.680 but it laid it out. And so you you developed 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:20.960 by association with people attitudes. And one of those attitudes was, 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.159 you know the attitude of keeping to yourself. You know, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.839 sub rosa, everything is within you. You know, there's an 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:33.960 opera called Tourndo and he sings, my mystery lies within Me. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.080 So that attitude kept with me. I I never never 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.360 forgot that, and I never forgot that attitude. What did 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.600 your dad do? My dad, he was a truck driver, 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.919 he was a doc foreman. He was, you know, a 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.560 salesman in the in the trucking business. And your mom 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.360 she was a housewife or she worked too. She worked too. 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.159 She worked for airline Pilots Associations for many years. But 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:00.920 you know, my mom and dad or divorced when I 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:03.200 was young, so I saw very little of my father 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.040 growing up. Did Yeah, what were you looking for? I mean, 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.280 I know that when my dad died. He died right 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:11.600 around the time that I started working in Los Angeles. 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.120 I mean, working on a more serious level, I wind 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.880 up seeking men to replace my father. I needed mentoring, 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.200 I needed advice. This was a critical time in my 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.560 life where the decisions I was making I could go 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.839 this way or that way. And my dad died. He 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.880 was only fifty, had cancer in three Right when I 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.520 went to l A, right when I'm surrounded by people 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.240 who are and I don't need to tell you, Hollywood 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.440 is the Harvard of bullshit. I mean, there's more people 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.760 full of ship out there than you can possibly imagine. Listen. 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:43.080 It took me an entire year to get used to that. 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.520 I was used to people saying, you know, giving you 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.400 their word and keeping it. I was used to people 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.160 telling you the truth. I I it took me a 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.800 year to get used to Hollywood, and it was a 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.920 tough year because of the attitude that I had when 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.680 I came across bullsh shit. You know, I reacted immediately 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.520 and I got a lot of people's attention because of that, 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.200 and that's why I think I would retain attained the 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.440 respect that I got because I was a no bullshit guy. 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.600 I was straight, right in your face, straight, and having 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:18.480 to deal with it as you had to deal with 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.080 it was cumbersome. The old man told me, he says, 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.840 you've gotta be more careful. I says, listen, the sharks 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.000 that we have in Chicago, don't compare it to the 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.600 sharks that are in Hollywood. You understand what I mean. Well, 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.480 I would say to people that if you want to 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.320 make money, and you want to make real money, go 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.840 to Wall Street. If you want to spend a lot 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.280 of time with beautiful women, go into the magazine business 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.720 and the modeling business. I said. If you want to 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:50.360 have power over people's lives, go to Washington money, sex, power. 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.320 But if you want the cocktail of all three, money, 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.240 sex and power, that's Hollywood, without any question, and I 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.000 would go out there. And the mistake I made was 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:02.200 I didn't realize that people will befriend you while you're 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.720 working together, and the moment what you're doing stops working, 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:10.640 the friendship is over. Well, you know, friendship, you can't 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.640 even equate people in Hollywood with friendship. I mean, the 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.000 guy that I'm closest to in the world is Ron Meyer. 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.840 He's like my brother. I mean, he took care of 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.760 me the whole time I was in prison, never stops 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.880 came to see me. You know. He was a stand up, 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.360 no bullshit man. He's a rare breed. Yeah. Yeah. But 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.280 getting back to father figures, I had lots of fathers, 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.160 you understand, because that's the way the family runs. You 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.320 had bosses, and you had this and that. But you know, 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.360 these were guys that I you know, I looked up 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.720 to and respected, and I respected that attitude and I 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.480 continue that attitude throughout my entire life. So going to 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.320 prison keeping my mouth shut was a no brainer for me. 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.600 At some point in your life, you pick up a 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:00.600 passion for, if not an obsession for gadgets and technology. 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.000 When does that start for you? Well, when I went 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.720 into the Army, I found out at that time I 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.360 had a high i Q. And they sat me down 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:09.960 and they asked me what did I wanted? What I 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.200 wanted to do? Well, I'm a street kit. All I 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.200 know is the street, right, And I looked around and 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:20.080 I saw a magazine that set electronics. So I said electronics, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.520 not knowing the thing about it, and go in and 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.040 they may make me a cryptographer. Where we stationed well 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.240 at schooling in Fort Gordon, Georgia. But then I was 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:32.680 stationed in France and I avoided the Vietnam War because 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.559 of it. While in the army, I learned a lot 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.240 about electronics, and I learned a lot about cryptography obviously, 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.520 and when I came out, I started getting heavily involved in, 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.040 you know, audio surveillance. So when when people asked me 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.400 about wire tapping, you know, I've been wire tapping since 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:55.160 nineteen sixty, never stopped. And the interesting thing about that 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.760 is the person that I learned about a particular recording 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:04.640 to ICE was Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson was the person 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.040 who put the Sony eight hundred B recorders in the 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.440 White House not mixing. So a Sony eight hundred B 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:17.079 recorder had a remote jack, so if you want to 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.520 record telephone conversations, and at that time it was really 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:23.959 real as you can imagine, what I did is I 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.880 devised a device that when the phone was on hook, 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.360 you had a certain voltage, and when it's off hook, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:35.040 the voltage drops and it turned the record around and 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.199 every time they hung up, it would shut off. So 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.400 let's go away, way back. One thing I'll say about 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.520 Hollywood movie making, that's one of the benefits of it 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.600 is you can at times get access to things you 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.559 never imagined. And I wanted to talk to guys who 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.040 are part of the joint New York State FBI Organized 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.720 Crime Task Force, and we wound up going to a 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.000 really non to script block on like thirty second Street, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.520 ninth Avenue. You're the middle of nowhere. Everything's closed, the 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.040 deli's closed, the coffee shops closed, everybody's all work now. 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.040 It's eight o'clock at night. And I walk in and 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:10.880 I go into the room and everything's been set up 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.959 by the studio and I go in and these guys 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.480 are there and it's an FBI wire tap nest and 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.000 they had the equipment there and up above was a 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.720 sign and it would say diminish four and they would 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:31.400 list husband, wife, parishioner, clergy, lawyer, client, doctor, patient. It 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:33.000 would tell them when they had to turn down the 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.920 volume and not record that conversation. Yeah, but they didn't 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.400 quite do that. Well, No, I don't know that I'll 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:41.480 leave it to you. But my point is this is 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.280 back in nineteen mid nineties, you'd hear this weird set 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:48.200 you here, like a big one, which was the guy 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.440 picking up his phone and it's a dial tone and 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.960 you'd hear boo boo boo boo boo boo boo here, 0:11:57.720 --> 0:11:59.839 and then they know, now he's recording the equipment to 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:01.959 be boarding and real real, And then you hear the 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.280 guy go, Frank, what are you doing? Hi, Tommy? How 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.000 you doing Tommy? I went out to stand down and 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.600 talk to Joey about that thing? What do you say 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.520 that things will take care of? What about that other thing? 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.280 What thing? The thing would ray? You know? And everything 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.480 was that thing, that thing that nobody said nothing, And 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.160 I thought, oh my god, I couldn't believe that this 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:27.040 is the FEDS wire tapping these guys, these mob guys houses. Well, 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.199 there was a law pass where they had to minimize 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:32.640 they would have to record for a certain length of 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:34.920 time and then shut it off and you know, if 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.360 they weren't talking about something, you know, interesting, But they 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.640 never did that. But I'm the guy who coined the 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:45.120 term of forensic audio, and I devised you know, programs 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.080 through analyze tape recordings. I did the the eight team 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.800 in a gap, I did the sarvantep. Was it easier 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.840 then when you started or did it become gradually easier 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.520 or harder to do this kind of work technologically in 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:00.760 the old days of the old phone opening. If you're 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.199 talking about your bugging and while you're tapping and all 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.439 that stuff, explain to my audience what the difference is. Okay, 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.000 A wire tap is recording both sides of a telephone conversation, 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.960 and a bug is usually involved in a rumor and enclosure. 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:18.720 In other words, you know you because smart guys didn't 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.439 really use the phone to communicate certain things. They would talk, 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.960 you know, in their home in a certain room. You 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.400 know when when people asked me to come and debug 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:31.720 their homes, and I had elaborate amount of equipment to 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.600 do it, and I found lots of wire tap and 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.520 bugging devices. But I would tell them, if you really 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:39.720 want to keep a secret, you go out to the 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:43.320 golf course and you're whispering each other's ear and you 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:48.840 say nothing, Okay, you want to really keep you know, 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:51.280 what is a Benjamin Frankly that says the only two 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.760 people that can keep a secret, you know, and a 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.800 three person situation is if two of them are dead. 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.680 But one time I went to uh Barrett Jackson, the 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.920 vintage car auctioneer. We were shooting a film in Phoenix 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.200 and we went to the legendary Barrett Jackson and they 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.040 showed us pictures of I don't think we saw the 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.360 actual car that Howard Hughes had commissioned, where he did 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.720 an array of batteries in the back of this buick 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:18.360 or whatever he had. He wanted to be able to 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.640 drive into the desert in Las Vegas and have meetings, 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.520 and he wanted to have the air conditioning on but 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.560 the car turned off, and he wanted to be able 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.200 to speak with no potential for being bugged or eavesdropped. 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.240 But if somebody really wanted to you would have figured 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.680 it out. But by then Hughes would have hired you 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:40.680 already and you'd be in his pocket, you'd be on 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.040 his staff. I've been involved in many of those adventures now. 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.800 But let me ask you, so, why are tapping or bugging? 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.600 Was it easier then when there was a simple bell 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.840 system in the old phone company. What's harder than or no? Well, 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.000 let me put it to you this way. When you 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.240 turn on a recorder, let's say you have on the tape. 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.680 You can listen for an hour, okay, you're going to 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.480 record an hour. That means you have to listen through 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:08.000 that hour, okay. So it's harder back then, because in 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.520 order to gather the information that you needed, you had 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:14.960 to listen to everything. So I devised a device and 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.800 you know, computer program where I could selectively record. In 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.760 other words, when you dial your mother, I didn't listen. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.240 When you dial Domino's Pizza, I didn't listen because I 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.800 programmed all those telephone numbers in there, so if you 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.040 dial those numbers, it wouldn't record. So it's a matter 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.880 of efficiency, common sense, and logic to determine what you 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.400 want to do. I was ten times better than what 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:44.640 the FBI had, you know, and it was all encrypted, 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.400 by the way, so if somebody were to get the recordings, 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.720 they couldn't listen to him anyhow, only I could listen 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.160 to him. I would imagine that with the work you 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.120 were doing, you had people come into your life, and 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.400 there's a legitimate need for private investigation. There are things 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.840 that people are stealing from people, There are things, people 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.880 are cheating on them, marriages, you take a vow you this. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.080 There's information that people are entitled to and they have 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.160 to take certain steps to get that information, and all 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.560 of that is legitimate and understandable. At the same time, 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.040 the relationship we might have had ends when the work 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:19.360 is over. Did people kind of distance themselves with you 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:21.720 when the dirty work, as far as they were concerned, 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.160 was done. Were there's some people that treat you that way? 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.200 Or were there other people who actually were gentlemanly in 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.040 an ongoing way. I made a lot of friends. But 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:31.920 let me just say one thing to you, which is 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.000 an adage that I used all the time. People love 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.840 you when they need you. That's say it all for 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.600 you that say it all that does say it. I'll 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:50.320 share Hollywood fixer Anthony Pelicano. I've talked to some pretty 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.560 tough characters, from Jimmy Cohn to Eline Stretch and Joe 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:59.280 Delessandro who went from juvenile delinquent to sex symbol and 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.800 talked about the first time he met the man who 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:06.200 made him famous, Andy Warhol. I never thought about it, 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.119 about the modeling thing. I had a couple of friends 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:13.160 in New York that introduced me to other people, and 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:17.280 and then one day one of these friends said, Hey, 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.520 I know this person that's uh making these campbell soup? 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.080 Can you know makes the candle sup? And I was 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.359 thinking we wore going to eat some soup, which I 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:32.480 was all for. Here more of my conversation with Joe 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:37.040 Delessandro that Here's the thing dot Org After the break, 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:42.160 Anthony Pellicano explains why he represented himself in court when 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.720 he was so well connected to some of Hollywood's most 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:59.280 powerful lawyers. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:03.399 Here's the Hang. In two thousand two, following up on 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:08.280 a tip, federal agents raided Anthony Pellicano's office on Sunset 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.159 Boulevard and found explosives in his safe. For such a 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:17.199 careful guy, it seemed like an uncharacteristic misstep. Well, there 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.240 wasn't any laughing judgment. The Sea four and the grenades 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.160 that I found were not mine. I tried to get 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.119 rid of them. I'm not gonna mention who they belonged to, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.120 but I put them in and my evidence safe. They 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:31.639 were in an evidence safe in my laboratory and my 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.719 forensic laboratory. Now I didn't know that thirty FBI agents 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.919 were to come that day and with a search warrant 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:42.199 and find them. So it just was a matter of 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.720 time and circumstance and bad luck. When they went and 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.199 searched the vault or whatever it was, the safe and 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.680 got the Sea four in the grenades, well, they had 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.119 an array. I had an array of safe in my office, 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.520 and you know, I was commanded to open them up, 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.080 otherwise they were going to take a mountain and drill 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.240 the locks. So I just opened them all up. What 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:01.760 do they find in there other than the see four 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.080 in the grenades? Lots of things they contributed to the 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.000 case that took you down. No, not really. There's only 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:09.959 one thing in the in the and there that was 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.320 a recording that was it, and that that was because 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:17.320 the client wanted me to memorialize particular recording, which I 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.840 never did, by the way, and I had it on 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.840 a CD and he wanted to keep that for whatever purposes, 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.360 and I had it locked in my safe. But no, 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:31.159 I mean the actual search warrants entitled the government to 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.359 do just about anything, which they're always entitled to do 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:39.000 just about anything. You know, when you're fighting the federal government. 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.080 You're not going to win. You are just not going 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.880 to there the litigant with the deepest pockets. It's not there. 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.560 It's not It's not only that. But they have immense power, 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.520 and people don't realize this. They don't know. People don't 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.320 realize the immense power that the United States government has. 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.280 They can do just about anything they want and get 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.200 away with just about anything. They what I mean, there 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:02.960 was a lot of things that they did that they 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.160 didn't have the power to do, and they did it anyhow. 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.359 I remember a famous actress and she was divorcing her 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.439 famous husband, and she joked and said that when her 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.840 friends would call, let's say, her famous husband's name was Bob. 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:18.680 And she said to me that she used to joke 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.640 that when her friends would call, she would say She'd 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:23.920 say say hi to Bob, and they go, what because 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.679 he knew that she knew she was divorcing Bob. And 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.360 she said, well, he's listening in right now. They're they're 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.520 tapping my phone, So say hi to Bob. And they 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.640 don't laugh and joke, and she she was like right 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.360 out there that this whole thing was going on. Well, 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:39.720 a lot of people imagine it too. You know, they 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:44.399 assume the ratio from actual wire tapping to the truth 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:49.280 is probably. You know, when you get these phone calls 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.760 from people who say, you know, I think my phones 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.720 are being tapped, I tell them the same thing. I 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.320 could come out there with an array of equipment. I 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.440 can find it and the next morn and they can 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:05.200 reinstall it. So you know, anybody is susceptible to anything 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:09.040 under the right circumstances. Is everything wireless? Now, can someone 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:10.760 sit in a car out in front of your house 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:12.400 and listen to everything you say on the phone? Oh, 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.680 we can be able to do that back in the sixties, really, yes, sir? 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:20.199 Oh my god. Well, if you use your imagination, you know, 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.439 anything is possible. And and today, with technology as it 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.480 is today, oh my god, you can do just about 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:31.320 anything you want, anything you want. So you go on 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.840 trial and you get sentenced to go to prison the 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.800 first round, and then we're gonna talk about how you 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:39.639 get to the end of that line, and then they 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.040 dump this whole other thing on you for this ungodly 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.760 amount of time. When you're in prison the first time, 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.600 what were you convicted of? Well, that was for the 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.080 CEA for in the grenades, right, and so and that 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.800 was sentence was how long? Well? That was for three years? 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.760 And you wound observing how long? Well? I finished that 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:57.880 sentence and walked out the door, and there were two 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.919 marshals who brought me back downtown and then I was 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.960 indicted for the racketeerian and everything else. And so when 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:08.640 that happened, do you think that these were people who 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:10.720 did this just to funk with you because you wouldn't 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.760 cooperate with them? Were they out to get you without 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:15.920