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Three charged with wiretapping, racketeering |
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Wednesday, 08 February 2006 |
A federal grand jury indicted private investigator Anthony Pellicano and two associates for the alleged illegal use of law enforcement data and wiretapping using a custom software program, prosecutors announced on Monday.
The 110-count indictment charges Pellicano and his associates with creating a criminal enterprise in which the private detective allegedly paid tens of thousands of dollars to police officers to provide him with confidential law enforcement information on numerous individuals. In addition, the indictment charges Pellicano and the two associates--a software developer and a telecommunications engineer--with creating a program known as Telesleuth in 1995 and using it as early as 1997 to wiretap such people as Herbalife co-founder Mark Hughes, actor Sylvester Stallone and journalist Anita Busch.
Wiretapping cases have gotten a lot of attention recently. Civil-rights activists and members of Congress took the Bush Administration to task for using the National Security Agency to tap international phone calls between American citizens and international terrorism suspects without a warrant. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced a Congressional inquiry on Monday regarding the legality of the wiretaps. In 2004, a Los Angeles judge threw out charges against a whistleblower for installing a hardware keylogger on a computer system at his former employer to gather evidence for consumer attorneys.
Mondays indictment was originally issued under seal on February 1. Among the other charges are 31 counts of wire fraud and five counts of identity theft. Four other defendants were charged wiretapping and wire fraud. |