A Fool For A Client (?)

Marc Graser of Variety reports on the latest testimony from the trial of Anthony Pellicano who's acting as his own lawyer in the case:

It wasn't the performance many thought she'd give, but actress Linda Doucett arguably uttered one of the most memorable lines of the Anthony Pellicano trial to date.

"You're the only bad guy I've ever known who ever investigated me," she told Pellicano under cross-examination by the former private eye...

Doucett's nervous testimony came days after her former fiance Garry Shandling took the witness stand to discuss how Pellicano illegally obtained personal information and wiretapped his phone calls during his lawsuit against former manager Brad Grey involving payment around "The Larry Sanders Show."

The actress, a regular on the HBO series for several seasons, also found herself being investigated by Pellicano during the lawsuit.

Prosecutors showed the jury reports containing Doucett's DMV records and other personal information, as well as a map of where she was living in Temecula, compiled by Pellicano Investigative Agency from police database searches allegedly conducted by former LAPD officer Mark Arneson.

During testimony, Doucett also recalled a threatening phone call she received after speaking to the FBI about the case. The caller warned that if she continued speaking with authorities or the press, "you won't see your child anymore." The call allegedly originated from a warehouse in Pomona.

It was just one of several threatening situations reported by witnesses during the day that resulted from Pellicano's alleged involvement.

Earlier Wednesday, Jude Green, the former wife of investment banker Leonard Green, testified that Pellicano followed her to a dog grooming facility in Santa Monica and then to a Peet's Coffee & Tea, where he blocked her car in with his Mercedes. Inside the coffee shop, he also supposedly started shoving her in line.

"You shoved me with your folded little arms," Green said. When asked by Pellicano what she did after that, Green sniped, "I turned around and said, 'Get the f*** away from me.' Remember that?"

The incident took place while Green was suing her husband for divorce in 2000 and found herself facing a $25 million counter suit filed by Bert Fields for "economic interference" in Green's business.

Three weeks into the trial, Pellicano continued to prove just why someone shouldn't represent himself in court.

During cross-examination of witnesses Wednesday, he frequently asked questions that elicited answers that could only hurt his defense.

For example, when he asked his former assistant Lily LeMasters who "specifically" asked her not to include Arneson's name in case files, she flatly said that it was Pellicano himself. When he proceeded to ask if there was a lot of shredding going on of files provided by Arneson, she said, "All the time."

And while questioning Doucett, Pellicano couldn't stop the actress from demanding some answers to her own questions, including "Why did you investigate me?"

Flustered, Pellicano immediately ended his cross-examination of her and took his seat.

Pellicano did manage to raise some doubts about whether LeMasters knew every little detail about what occurred within the agency...

Arneson's defense attorney, Chad Hummel, also managed to raise questions in his defense...

Overall, the Pellicano trial has yet to become the high-profile Hollywood affair industryites thought it might turn into. The prosecution's case against Pellicano and the four co-defendants isn't wowing Judge Dale S. Fischer, either.

Once jurors had left the courtroom on Wednesday, the presiding judge told prosecutors, "This is really lengthy and boring."

It would seem to me that Pellicano may ending looking twice as guilty to the Jurors by allowing a witness to "fluster" him when he insists he's not the man prosecutors claim he is.

Later today Brad Grey comes calling and may things in the courtroom a little less "boring"...