Wiretap Of Opposing Client Leads To Disbarment

A crime of moral turpitude conviction has resulted in an attorney’s disbarment by the California Supreme Court.

Deadline had a story on his three-year sentence. 

The opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirming the conviction is linked here. 

Terry Christensen hired Pellicano to wiretap Lisa Bonder. Bonder was engaged in a child support dispute with Christensen’s client, Kirk Kerkorian. A central part of Christensen’s strategy was proving that the child involved in the dispute was not his client’s biological child. A DNA test eventually proved that another man was the father. While the litigation was ongoing, Pellicano intercepted many of Bonder’s conversations, including conversations with her attorneys, family, and friends about the child support litigation. The main evidence against Christensen consisted of recordings of more than 30 phone conversations in which he discussed with Pellicano the wiretap on Bonder. These recordings, which Pellicano recorded secretly, were seized from PIA’s offices.

A losing argument in the criminal appeal

The district court concluded that Christensen’s background did not justify a downward variance because Christensen was “not so different from hundreds of partners in well-respected firms.” The record reflects rational and meaningful consideration by the court of Christensen’s § 3553(a) arguments, as well as a familiarity with the individual case and the individual defendant before the court. The court bluntly stated its individualized assessment of Christensen:

I heard five weeks of testimony, including hours of absolutely astounding telephone conversations between Mr. Christensen and Mr. Pellicano. The manner in which Mr. Christensen referred to other respected members of the California Bar and the complete disdain that he had for them and for the law was shocking and outrageous. It shows that there is another side to Mr. Christensen than the one shown in the letters I received [from Christensen’s friends and family].

As reported by the State Bar Court Hearing Department, he had represented  the late Kirk Kerkorian in a child support action and hired Anthony Pellicano to investigate Lisa Bonder

From on or about March 18, 2002, through May 16, 2002, Pellicano, pursuant to the agreement, provided respondent with information that Pellicano was learning from the wiretap regarding: (i) the paternity of Bonder’s daughter; (ii) Bonder’s litigation strategy and settlement position in the ongoing litigation; and (iii) the details of Bonder’s private and intimate telephone conversations with her attorneys, her doctor, her family, and friends. Based on testimony at the criminal trial about Bonder’s telephone habits, the number of telephone calls that Pellicano intercepted was at least in the hundreds.

The ethical violation

Respondent’s conduct enabled him to invade the attorney-client privilege and obtain information protected by it. Respondent’s conduct subverted the legal system and violated fundamental principles of fairness and equal treatment under the law. Respondent’s actions marred the legal community and the justice system. Bonder submitted a letter to the Court in the criminal matter about the significant emotional pain and profound deprivation of privacy that she experienced as a result of respondent’s conduct. Respondent’s other victims, including Bonder’s attorneys, testified and wrote that they experienced a profound sense of violation, humiliation, and emotional harm resulting from respondent’s conduct, as well as an ongoing inability to trust in the confidentiality of their telephone conversations, which, for attorneys, directly impacts their ability to practice their profession.

A portrait of the client in Mercury News comes from a book The Gambler

In today’s FANG-obsessed climate (that’s the acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, everyone’s favorite stocks), and amid the breathless enthusiasm for Airbnb, Uber and other darlings of the new economy, it can be hard to find reason to remember some of the legends of corporate America’s earlier eras. That’s a shame, because the annals of capitalism are filled with visionairies [sic], risk-takers and colorful personalities who, well before the phrase “digital transformation” entered the lexicon, formed the building blocks of our society today, creating wealth for themselves and shareholders and dominating the headlines (and their takeover targets) while doing it.

Easily one of the most compelling of these figures is Kirk Kerkorian, the Armenian American billionaire financier who played an enormous role in shaping modern-day Las Vegas, along the way also shaking up Hollywood and the auto industry. When I was starting out as a fact-checker at Forbes in the late 1990s, Kerkorian was at his height. As a reporter assigned to the Forbes 400, I remember calculating his wealth through his holding company, Tracinda, named for his daughters Tracy and Linda. I can also remember the headlines about the brutal paternity fight waged by Lisa Bonder, a former tennis player 48 years his junior, that played out in the courts and the press during those years and afterward.

Here it plays out in bar discipline. (Mike Frisch)