Ovitz ID’d In Pellicano Case
A former Los Angeles Times reporter who filed a civil suit claiming, among other things, celebrity gumshoe Anthony Pellicano threatened her is naming names of others she believes participated in the intimidation. And one of them is former
Anita Busch, who also previously wrote for the Hollywood Reporter, filed a suit in 2004 that fingered Pellicano, several of his associates and numerous unnamed defendants as “responsible for the purpose of deterring … and retaliating against [Busch] for investigating and writing articles about the entertainment business,” according to the Times.
An amendment to the complaint, filed November 13th in L.A. County Superior Court, revealed that an unnamed defendant known as “Doe 4” is in fact Ovitz, implying that Busch and her attorneys may have new information in the case though the claim still does not allege specific actions by him, according to the paper.
“My client had nothing to do with this. It’s unfortunate that Ms. Busch has chosen to involve him in this matter,” Ovitz’s attorney, James Ellis, said in a brief statement reported by the Times.
Ovitz has previously acknowledged that his outside law firm hired Pellicano to assist with the defense in three 2002 lawsuits filed against his former company, Artist Management Group.
Pellicano has been under indictment since Busch initially filed her suit, along with former L.A. police Sgt. Mark Arneson, for illegally accessing confidential law enforcement databases seeking dirt on rivals, including Busch. The federal indictment names her, former New York Times reporter Bernard Weinraub, and CAA execs Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane as victims of the illegal background checks.
Busch’s records were allegedly accessed May 16, 2002, less than three months before she went to her car to find a fish with a rose in its mouth, and a note reading “Stop,” on her windshield. She and Weinraub had been reporting on Ovitz and other entertainment figures at the time.
Pellicano and others are alleged to have conducted illegal wiretaps of nearly a dozen people, including Sylvester Stallone, Keith Carradine and Kevin Nealon, between August 2000 and November 2002.
