Comedian Shandling Helps Wake Up Pellicano Trial

[WSJ_law_blog]

A full week has passed since the much-hyped trial of Hollywood PI Anthony Pellicano started, and, yet, we haven’t written about it since describing the opening statements from last Thursday. Why? Well, nothing much has happened; even the trial’s hometown paper is taking a pass.

“It’s kind of yesterday’s news,” producer Bill Mechanic told the LAT on Saturday. “There were all these rumors a couple of years ago that it would explode, and it seemingly never did.” Apparently, having a C-list of tinseltown glitterati attached to the case isn’t enough. Pellicano would likely need to turn on his former clients in order to reinspire the public’s interest in his case. Meanwhile, many of those who benefited the most from Pellicano’s allegedly surreptitious ways — his clients — are being used against him by the prosecution.

Still, it’s not all hum-drum at the Pellicano trial. Yesterday, comedian Garry Shandling took the stage stand to describe how it felt to be on the receiving end of Pellicano’s investigative tactics. Among the first questions AUSA Kevin Lally asked Shandling was to name his occupation. The star of “The Larry Sanders Show” paused, as if to acknowledge he hadn’t been working much lately. “That’s a bad sign,” said Shandling, drawing laughs from jurors and the courtroom crowd. (Here’s the NYT report, and here’s a story from the NYP.)

Shandling’s testimony focused on a $100 million lawsuit he brought against Paramount chairman Brad Grey in 1998. In that suit, Shandling accused Grey — who before going to Paramount was Shandling’s manager — of “triple dipping,” or taking half-ownership of Shandling’s HBO show, “The Larry Sanders Show,” plus a producer’s fee, plus commissions on Shandling’s acting and writing fees. In the suit, prosecutors say Pellicano, on behalf of Grey, bribed cops for information about Shandling from police databases. (Grey’s lawyer in that suit was Bert Fields, a frequent user of Pellicano’s services.)

In a brief cross, Pellicano, representing himself, reportedly tried and failed to get Shandling to say that Grey had helped make him a success. Pellicano asked Shandling who had negotiated his deal with HBO for “The Larry Sanders Show.” But Shandling said he sold the show to an HBO executive in one phone call. “Brad Grey had nothing to do with it till he said, ‘I’ll take half of the show,’ ” Shandling said.