Posted on 11/23/2002 9:06:17 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
A California private detective who worked to discredit Clinton Sexgate accusers Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers has been arrested in connection with attempts to intimidate a reporter for the Los Angeles Times after the FBI caught him with an arsenal of explosives.
Anthony J. Pellicano was arrested Thursday after a search of his office by a dozen FBI agents turned up an "array of explosives," reported New York's Daily News on Saturday.
"Agents seized plastic explosives, detonating cord, blasting caps and two handguns," the paper said.
Pellicano's stash of explosives "could be used to bring down a plane or blow up a car," an FBI agent said.
In addition, the safe in Pellicano's Sunset Boulevard Office contained 15 to 20 bundles of cash, "the majority of which bore $10,000 wrappers," according to the Los Angeles Times.
In February, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton was alleged to have hired Pellicano in 1992 in an attempt to discredit Gennifer Flowers' claims of a twelve year affair with Mr. Clinton.
Pellicano's office was searched Thursday after ex-con Alexander Proctor told police that the Clinton-connected detective had paid him $10,000 to intimidate Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch into stopping an investigation into a Mafia extortion plot against actor Steven Seagal.
According to Proctor, Seagal hired Pellicano, who in-turn subcontracted the job to him.
Federal prosecutors allege that Proctor broke the windshield of Busch's car and left a dead fish on the front seat. The fish had a single long-stemmed red rose in its mouth, with a sign placed nearby that read simply, "Stop."
The episode bears an eerie resemblance to the account of Clinton sex-accuser Sally Perdue, who told the London Telegraph in 1994 that after she was threatened with physical violence, her car windshield was broken and spent shotgun shell was left on the seat. Perdue abruptly relocated to China a few months after talking to the Telegraph, shortly after Paula Jones sued Mr. Clinton for sexual harassment.
Though Pellicano's name never surfaced in connection with Perdue's allegations, he reportedly played a key role in attempts to discredit both Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers.
Four days after the Lewinsky story broke in Jan. 1998, ex-Lewinsky boyfriend Andy Bleiler came forward with the claim that she had stalked him. The Washington state school teacher also contended that Lewinsky wanted to become a White House intern so she could perform oral sex on then-President Clinton.
"I'm going to Washington to get my presidential knee pads," Bleiler's lawyer, Terry Giles, quoted Lewinsky as saying.
"Anthony Pellicano, the L.A.-based private investigator and O.J. defense team veteran [was] responsible for digging up Andy Bleiler," the New York Post's Andrea Peyser reported days later. Sexgate provocatuer Lucianne Goldberg told Peyser that Pellicano's services were bought and paid for by the Clinton White House.
When Peyser confronted the Los Angeles private detective with Goldberg's claim, he didn't deny it. "You're a smart girl. No comment," Pellicano told the Post reporter.
Digging up Bleiler's "presidential kneepads" story wasn't the first time Pellicano had gone to bat for the Clintons.
According to Ron Kessler's 1995 best-seller, "Inside the White House," Clinton's first presidential campaign relied on Pellicano's expertise in the field of audio analysis to discredit Gennifer Flowers' smoking gun tapes.
"The Clinton camp made much of the fact that Anthony J. Pellicano, an expert on audio recording analysis, had told the press that a twelve-minute portion of the tape of conversations between Flowers and Clinton had been 'selectively edited' at two points," Kessler reported.
To counter Pellicano's claims, Flowers submitted her recordings to Truth Verification Labs, which found them to be 100 percent authentic.
In 1999 Flowers filed a defamation suit against Clinton campaign officials James Carville and George Stephanopoulos - along with then-first lady Hillary Clinton - based on their attempts to use Pellicano's analysis to discredit her.
During a February court appearance, the head of Flowers' legal team, Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman, told the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, "Anthony Pellicano was a private investigator hired by Mrs. Clinton herself. And he's the one who did the analysis of the tapes."
Of the more than two dozen media reports on Pellicano's Thursday arrest so far, none have mentioned his ties to the Clinton attack machine.
Notice how the guy is in California...as far away from his employer as possible.
when will this bird start to squawk?
This guy was arrested in connection with a charge against Steven Seagal.
Interesting that both stories hit the headlines today.
Very interesting!
Could it be Anthony Muhammad Pellicano who has been behind the "threatening" of Li'l Tommy?<
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