Imprisoned Pellicano Sings To LA Times

So Anthony Pellicano broke his silence and granted a jailhouse phone interview to the Los Angeles Times’ Chuck Philips who wrote it up for today. Finally, the hometown newspaper has a scoop about its hometown scandal. Until very recently, The New York Times had been kicking its butt, and now the legal newspaper Daily Journal has taken the NYT‘s place. His first interview in three years, the jailed P.I. is predictable, as is Philips write-up. But I fear Chuck buried the lede. Instead of letting Pellicano rap the feds (yawn), or maintain he won’t ‘rat out’ his clients and friends (readers of this website already knew that from the Daily Journal‘s story last week: Pellicano Still Won’t Sing), the LAT nearly buried the hilarious nugget that Pellicano thinks he should be let out of prison so he can find Osama Bin Laden! Instead, we’re given Pellicano’s accusations that the “overzealous” feds are exaggerating the strength of their “bogus” case against him and it will “fizzle out like a box-office flop.” That sort of bravado coming from the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles one morning last week, in a 30-minute session that detention center officials allowed to be conducted over an unmonitored line, is pure Pellicano as even Philips recognized — and therefore not exactly surprising.

“The federal government has purposely tried to make this thing larger than life — like a Hollywood movie,” Pellicano said. “To me, these are the acts of overzealous FBI agents and prosecutors who have never really accomplished anything in their careers. They are trying to use my name and reputation to build something better for themselves. I think they had it in their minds that this is some big case where I’m purportedly wiretapping all kinds of celebrities and there are all these tapes. By the way, where are all these recordings that they are talking about? The government said they have a bunch. But they have never provided them to us in discovery. And they never will. Because they don’t exist.”

As for cooperating with authorities or testifying against a bevy of A-list lawyers, Hollywood executives, business moguls and celebrities who have hired him over the years to dig up dirt on their adversaries, Pellicano told the LAT: “My loyalty never dies. You’re not going to see me take the stand against the clients and employees and other people that are going to be testifying against me. I didn’t rat them out. You understand? I am never going to besmirch a client or any other person that I gave my trust to or who gave their trust to me. I’m never going to do that. I am going to be a man until I fall — if, in fact, that happens.'”

Here’s what else the P.I. said:

Pellicano Defends ‘Mr. Clean’ Bert Fields

Pellicano Sees Irony in NSA Wiretapping

Pellicano Wants Out of Jail To Find Osama

Pellicano Denies Threatening Journo Busch

Pellicano Playing Chess in ‘The Joint’