Whack Job

There was a lot of court room drama yesterday at the Anthony Pellicano trial....

Diane Garrett of Variety has the play-by play:

..Pellicano suggested murder as the ultimate solution for a deadbeat producer, a Gotham hedge fund manager testified Tuesday in the government's wiretapping trial against the P.I.

Moneyman Adam D.Sender's bombshell came midway through a particularly juicy day of testimony about philandering husbands and wives, a fight at Nate 'n Al's and a comical deposition stakeout in a barbershop.

But those tales paled in comparison with Sender's story, which began when the former partner in Kadem Capital invested $1 million of his money into a production company with Aaron Russo When Sender's first attorney couldn't get relief, he hired Bert Fieldswho put him in touch with Pellicano as someone with unorthodox methods who gets the job done.

Sender spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get his money back, alternately wiring money to Pellicano and sending it by $5,000 allotments via FedEx. By the time he was done, Sender, who talked bitterly in tapes about getting back at Russo, now deceased, Sender had spent $800,000 on his quest.

Sender said Pellicano suggested killing Russo during a meeting at his Bel-Air home. He said the private eye let him know that "if I wanted to I could basically have (Russo) murdered on his way back from Las Vegas," Sender testified.

Under this scenario, someone would follow Russo, "drive him off the road and bury his body off the desert."

"Did he appear to be joking?" prosecutor Daniel Saunders queried.

"Absolutely not," Sender responded.

Pellicano did not appear overly cowed by the implication. The P.I., who is representing himself in the trial, offered a more colorful version of the exchange to his former client: "You spent all this money, why don't you just have him whacked?" he said the conversation went, before quickly paraphrasing the exchange as "If you spent all the money on this guy, why don't you have them killed?"

To which Sender said, "He might have phrased it that way."

And in any case, Sender said he did not report the conversation because nothing came of it. He also acknowledged he knew full well that Pellicano was tapping his former business associate's phones and expressed remorse that he did nothing about it.

"I just went along with it, and I'm sorry," Sender said. "I wish I never did."

Earlier in the day, Sandra Will Carradine (pictured) also expressed remorse for keeping mum.

The ex-wife of Keith Carradine was indicted after lying to a grand jury about her knowledge of Pellicano's wiretapping activities on her behalf. She had retained Pellicano at the recommendation of a friend while she and her ex were hammering out a child-support agreement. She said she hired the P.I. to bolster her case that he was actually living in California, not Colorado, and that he was hiding assets from her.

In damaging audio tapes played before the court, Pellicano described some of his tactics, stating more than once that Carradine was better off not knowing the details.

"I've got some interesting things I'm working, honey, that I'm not going to discuss over the phone," Pellicano said. "Because you might be deposed."

He subsequently described using a bunch of different numbers to find out information "so people don't know I'm doing it."

In another audio recording, Pellicano told her about the activities of Keith Carradine and his then-girlfriend. "Listen to me," he exhorted. "You know how I know this, right? Without going into details over the telephone, I know that's what they were doing." ...

Talk about your own words coming back to haunt you. Exactly why is Pellicano representing himself?

Stay Tuned...