Tinseltown PI Won't Help Feds

(CBS/AP)  Anthony Pellicano, the private eye to the stars who is going to prison for possessing illegal explosives, says he won't cooperate with authorities investigating whether he secretly taped conversations of celebrities and their lawyers.

Pellicano, who was to report to the Federal Detention Center in Los Angeles on Monday, also said the lawyers and celebrities he worked for over the years are innocent.

"They did nothing wrong," he was quoted as saying in Monday's Los Angeles Times. "The government should leave them alone. And me, I'm going to take this punishment like a man. I will not participate in any way, shape or form with this investigation."

Pellicano, 59, has provided detective work and security and sometimes acted as spokesman for such stars as Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Sylvester Stallone. He pleaded guilty last month to illegally possessing military-style explosives and hand grenades found during a raid of his office last year. He is expected to serve 27 to 33 months.

Pellicano said he has rejected offers of leniency in exchange for his cooperation with the wiretapping investigation, adding that private investigators "must maintain the confidentiality of every client in every investigation."

Federal officials have declined to discuss their investigation, but several people have confirmed that FBI agents have interviewed them about Pellicano.

Authorities have said they found transcripts of purported wiretaps placed on celebrities and their lawyers when they raided his office. Pellicano said he is challenging the legality of the raid, adding the search warrants authorities served were overly broad.

The raid was part of the investigation of a June 2002 threat against Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch, who was looking into actor Steven Seagal's alleged mob connections. She found a dead fish and a rose on her car, along with a cardboard sign saying "Stop."

An ex-convict awaiting trial on charges he made the threat said it was Pellicano who hired him to do it. Pellicano and Seagal have denied any involvement.

A one-time "skip tracer" from Chicago who made a living tracking down people who didn't pay their Spiegel catalog bills, Pellicano gained national attention in 1977 when he found the remains of Taylor's third husband, movie producer Michael Todd, after they were stolen from an Illinois cemetery. His success was said to have won the admiration of Taylor and helped facilitate his transition to celebrity private eye.

His next big success came in 1983, when the self-taught expert in analyzing audio recordings and enhancing the quality of surveillance tapes helped former automaker John DeLorean win acquittal on cocaine trafficking charges. DeLorean was arrested after authorities said he was caught on videotape trying to sell undercover agents drugs to raise millions of dollars to bail out his struggling car company.

The tough-talking Pellicano cultivated an image akin to novelist Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled, swaggering detective Philip Marlowe. He claimed to carry a baseball bat, not a gun, as his weapon of choice and once told the Los Angeles Times: "I only use intimidation and fear when I absolutely have to."