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In Opening of Wiretap Trial, Christensen Claims He Was the Victim
The National Law Journal
July 21, 2008
Lawyer Terry Christensen, who is going to trial on federal wiretapping conspiracy charges, did not ask celebrity sleuth Anthony Pellicano to wiretap his opponents in a high-profile child support case, as federal prosecutors maintain, said Christensen's lawyer, Patricia Glaser, in opening statements in the criminal case on Thursday.
In a packed Los Angeles courtroom, Glaser argued that her client was the victim. She said there is no evidence of the wiretapped calls in question and that, even if they did exist, Christensen knew nothing about them. In fact, she added, Christensen, who had never worked before with Pellicano, did not even know that Pellicano was secretly recording their phone conversations.
"Mr. Terry Christensen was a victim of illegal recording," she said, "not a perpetrator." Those recorded phone conversations, which make up about six hours, are at the heart of the government's case, which accuses Christensen of paying Pellicano more than $100,000 to wiretap Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the ex-wife of his client, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, in a 2002 child support case.
At one point, Bonder Kerkorian had been seeking $320,000 per month for her 4-year-old daughter, Kira.
One of the central issues in the dispute, and the subject in many of the recorded conversations in the government's case, was the identity of Kira's biological father. Bonder Kerkorian married Kirk Kerkorian in 1999, one year after giving birth to Kira. The marriage lasted 28 days.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Lally, lacing his opening statement on Thursday with numerous references to the recorded conversations, said the government would show jurors "call after call after call, 34 of them in all, between defendant Pellicano and defendant Christensen in which they discuss all the aspects of the wiretapping conspiracy." He said Christensen was an active participant in the conspiracy and directed Pellicano in the recorded conversations.
In one recorded call, Pellicano told Christensen that "we're really killing them" if they continued to use his "strategy," Lally said. In another, he said, Pellicano told Christensen that "there's no way, without my unique techniques, that you would know this." Christensen often referred to the case as "war," said Lally, pointing to Christensen in the courtroom.
"At the end of this trial," he said, "there will be no credible evidence that these recordings are anything but the real time conversations between defendant Pellicano and defendant Christensen."
Glaser, however, chipped away at authenticity of the recordings. Many of government's most damaging words, she said, were references to "records" and "adventures" and "letters," not "wiretapping." She explained that Pellicano could easily edit the recordings, which had 184 gaps in which pieces of the conversation could have been added or removed.
"The evidence will show the recordings are incomplete," she said.
Christensen and Pellicano, both 64, are each charged with one count of conspiring to intercept wire communications. In addition, Pellicano is charged with intercepting wire communications, and Christensen is charged with aiding and abetting those interceptions.
Pellicano was convicted last month on 76 counts, including charges of racketeering and wiretapping.
They both face up to a decade in prison.
Pellicano declined to give an opening statement on Thursday. The trial is anticipated to last a month.
