Terry Christensen, Pellicano, Convicted on Wiretapping Charges

[WSJ_law_blog]

This just in from the West Coast: Private investigator Anthony Pellicano (pictured) and attorney Terry Christensen were convicted of conspiring to illegally wiretap the ex-wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian. Here’s the L.A. Times story.

Christensen, who was an attorney for Kerkorian, was accused of hiring Pellicano to listen in on the phone conversations of Lisa Bonder Kerkorian during a bitterly fought child support case. The lawyer and investigator were each charged with two felony counts relating to the alleged wiretap.

In the end, notes the LAT, Christensen was the only one to be indicted among a number of marquee entertainment attorneys who used Pellicano’s services.

Pellicano, 64, had been found guilty in May of another 76 counts, which included racketeering, wire fraud and computer fraud in addition to wiretapping. Christensen’s attorneys asked that their client be tried separately from that case, in which a jury also delivered sweeping guilty verdicts against Pellicano’s co-defendants: a police sergeant, phone company employee, computer technician and a businessman who prosecutors said helped run Pellicano’s wiretapping enterprise.

Experts said the additional convictions were unlikely to have much effect on Pellicano’s sentence, which some estimated would not be more than 10 years. But for Christensen, a conviction means not only a possible prison term, but also the likely loss of his law license, damage to his reputation and a negative effect on the 110-lawyer Century City firm he co-founded, experts told the LAT.