Friend of Bill and Hill On Trial, Media Yawns

I haven't paid much attention to the Anthony Pellicano trial, but now have a keen interest, for obvious reasons.

A sexy lingerie model turned private eye who did dirty work for Anthony Pellicano said yesterday that the disgraced detective snooped for Tom Cruise and bribed a cop in exchange for personal information.

Tarita Virtue - whom Maxim magazine named the "Sexiest Private Investigator in America" - testified that former LAPD Sgt. Mark Arneson, one of Pellicano's co-defendants, was given a "wad of cash" each time he conducted a background check.

Virtue, who started working for Pellicano in 2000, also said he had an elaborate computer password system to secure his files, which he identified individually with code names.

One such file - named "cruise missile" - referred to the "Mission Impossible" star, Virtue said.

Pellicano has worked for lawyers who represented Cruise, along with John Travolta, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor.

Virtue also said that data were typically entered into the computer and that the paper trail of documents - supplied to them by Arneson - was then destroyed.

During opening arguments, Arneson's lawyer, Chad Hummel, admitted his client "crossed the line" but said Arneson did not know that Pellicano was going to use the information supplied to him to blackmail others.

Federal prosecutors have said Arneson pocketed more than $180,000 in exchange for documents containing Social Security numbers and rap sheets.

The feds accuse Pellicano, 63, of raking in over $2 million by spying on Hollywood's rich and famous, then blackmailing them by threatening to supply dirt to their rivals.

Sounds like quite a guy.

Curious how coverage of the Pellicano trial fails to mention his connection to the Clintons. If the trial of Tony Rezko draws attention to his connection to Barack [deleted] Obama, why doesn't Mrs. Clinton receive the same scrutiny for her ties to Pellicano?

Willey points out the Clintons also hired notorious private investigator Anthony Pellicano, known for his dirty tricks and rough tactics on behalf of celebrity clients. As a member of the Clinton "shadow team" for two terms, he's reputed to have been deeply involved in the efforts to discredit Flowers and Lewinsky.

Willey notes Pellicano, according to court documents, hired Alexander Proctor to threaten a Los Angeles Times reporter working on a story about actor Steven Seagal and possible links to the Mafia. Proctor allegedly placed a dead fish with a rose in its mouth on the windshield of her car and made a bullet-sized hole in her windshield.

"These are precisely the kind of terror tactics that were in play against me," Willey writes.

On top of that, here's an interesting item I missed a couple weeks back.

While Hillary Clinton battles Barack Obama on the campaign trail, a judge in Los Angeles is quietly preparing to set a trial date in a $17 million fraud suit that aims to expose an alleged culture of widespread corruption by the Clintons and the Democratic Party.

At the conclusion of a hearing tomorrow morning before California Superior Court Judge Aurelio N. Munoz, lawyers for Hollywood mogul Peter F. Paul will begin seeking sworn testimony from all three Clintons – Bill, Hillary and Chelsea – along with top Democratic Party leaders and A-list celebrities, including Barbra Streisand, John Travolta, Brad Pitt and Cher.

Paul's team hopes for a trial in October. The Clintons' longtime lawyer David Kendall, who will attend the hearing, has declined comment on the suit.

The Clintons have tried to dismiss the case, but the California Supreme Court, in 2004, upheld a lower-court decision to deny the motion.