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Chris Rock’s testified for about 15 minutes at the Anthony Pellicano trial on Friday. Pellicano was a private investigator to the stars, including Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who now faces charges of racketeering and illegal wiretapping. Pellicano had contacts in the telephone and police department and would regularly run background checks and tap both his clients’ and their targets’ phones. Pellicano was also known to intimidate and harass anyone who got in his way and regularly fed stories to the tabloids on his clients, only to turn around and solicit their business. He’s been in Federal prison since 2002 on an illegal weapons conviction, and is stupidly representing himself in this case.
Rock was said to be accused of raping a woman he had a date and one night stand with during a time he was estranged from his wife in 1998. The woman initially tried to pin a pregnancy on Rock and extort money from him, but when that didn’t stick and DNA tests showed he wasn’t the father, Pellicano told Rock she went to the police and claimed he raped her.
Pellicano was the one who told Rock about the rape claim & Rock never saw police report
The thing that TMZ fails to mention in their salacious coverage of this is that Rock never saw a police report, nor does it sound like the police even contacted him to inform him of these charges. He was definitely never arrested or charged.
It was Pellicano who told Rock about the woman’s claims and thus secured his business, according to Rock’s testimony. That would meant that either Pellicano had an inside police source tell him the story, which never escalated to an actual charge against Rock because there wasn’t enough evidence, or that Pellicano fabricated the story based on dirt he knew about Rock. Rock was first a client of Pellicano’s in 1999 when the woman accused him of fathering a child, and again in 2001 when Pellicano informed him of this supposed rape charge.
Given Pellicano’s record of double-dealing, it’s very possible that he cooked up the whole scheme himself to get more money from Rock.
Even if this woman did go to police, it sounds like her claims weren’t taken seriously and that Rock had nothing to fear. According to audio taped recordings between Pellicano and Rock, Pellicano promised Rock he would “blacken her up,” or smear her and that he had nothing to worry about. It is likely that Rock had nothing to worry about in the first place and that Pellicano just wanted his money:
On cross-examination, Mr. Rock appeared to be even more annoyed about having to be in the courtroom… [When] asked about whether the comedian believed that Ms. Zsibrita’s paternity claim was false and that he’d been “shaken down” by her, Mr. Rock seemed to take umbrage at the form of the question. “I didn’t believe the claim was false, DNA tests proved it was false,” he said irritably. “Someone not pregnant with my child claimed to be pregnant with my child and requested large sums of money.”
Mr. Rock also testified that he learned about Ms. Zsibrita’s allegations that he’d assaulted her from none other than everybody’s favorite private detective, Anthony Pellicano. Mr. Rock said that although he never saw the actual police report, Mr. Pellicano told him about it. He also added that the allegations of assault in the report were false and that he was never arrested. “So, you know that you believe that you didn’t do anything wrong?” Mr. Hummel asked about the assault allegations. “I don’t believe it,” Mr. Rock replied. “I’m here as a free man… I didn’t do anything wrong.” Finally, Mr. Hummel asked Mr. Rock if he knew that Mr. Pellicano was following Ms. Zsibrita. “Not really,” Mr. Rock said, seemingly oblivious to everything that the detective had done to Ms. Zsibrita on his behalf.
[From The Huffington Post]
Pellicano regularly scammed celebrities into hiring him and his cronies
Pellicano did business by digging up stories on celebrities, feeding them to the tabloids, and then contacting the celebrities to inform them about the claims and secure their business, according to private investigator Paul Baressi. Baressi worked with Pellicano on key cases, including a gay prostitute’s claim to have wrestled with Tom Cruise (which I believe was false and a set up by Pellicano, having read Baressi’s account) and found out first hand how Pellicano duped his clients.
In a later chapter, I will explain in great detail how Pellicano had tabloid reporters who routinely tipped him off about stories that were in the works, at The National Enquirer, that could potentially hurt any number of celebrities. Pellicano could then contact the celebrity himself, or the celebrity’s attorney, to warn them that something cooking at The National Enquirer, The Globe or The Star that, if published, could seriously damage the career, reputation and livelihood of the celebrity in question. This methodology would stir up litigation for the $500 to $900 an hour entertainment attorneys with whom Pellicano had established relationships and, at the same time, force the celebrity represented by one of those attorneys to dig deep into his or her pockets to make the problem go away. Little did the celebrity know that Pellicano, with the help of his inside people at the tabs, created the fire, only to return as the hero to extinguish it.
[Excerpt from Paul Baressi's book "Pellicano's Enforcer," found on Hollywood Interrupted]
So if Rock says that the first person who told him about these charges was Pellicano, it’s likely that Pellicano either had a hand in the charges in the first place, or exaggerated their importance, securing thousands in fees.
Chris Rock is shown at Ceasar’s Palace on 11/16/07, thanks to PRPhotos.
