Hollywood Private Eye Sentenced to 15 Years

by Deb Cupples |   Yesterday, the LA Times told us that former Hollywood private detective Anthony Pellicano "was sentenced to 15 years in prison this afternoon for running an illegal wiretapping operation that gathered information for a list of well-to-do clients, including celebrities, attorneys and business executives." The probation department recommended only five years and ten months.

Apparently, Mr. Pellicano had done all sorts of illegal wiretapping and spying both for and on Hollywood celebrities and business folks.   He was convicted of 78 criminal counts.

This paragraph from the article troubled me:

"In court papers filed in October, prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Pellicano, 64, to more than 15 years in prison, saying the sleuth was charged with, and convicted of, only a fraction of the crimes he actually committed."

Whoa!  Admittedly, it's been years since I took criminal law, and I've never practiced crim law.  Still, something seems amiss, here.  It seems to me that a judge should not even consider allegations by a prosecutor that a defendant committed more crimes than a jury convicted him of, because that would amount to a presumption of guilt.

Of course, the judge may not have based the sentence on the presumption of guilt.  Still, was it right for the prosecutor to even make the argument?

Another thing bothers me: the LA Times said that wealthy clients paid Mr. Pellicano to gather certain types of information about other people -- some of which, I suspect, could not have been gathered in a lawful way.

Here's my question: are any of those clients who paid for and benefited from Mr. Pellicano's illegal activities criminally liable?

Memeorandum has commentary.

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Comments

[Charles II]

This is something out of The Trial. By the same reasoning, one could take someone who has been convicted of nothing and sentence them to serve time on the basis that they must be guilty of something.