Prosecutors Seek To Cage "The Pelican"

MARCH 4--Claiming that celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano has tried to intimidate a potential grand jury witness against him, federal prosecutors are seeking to have Pellicano jailed as he awaits trial on weapons and explosives charges. Pellicano, now free on $400,000 bond, last month called the father of an ex-employee "in order to intimidate and dissuade" him from testifying before a grand jury now probing "the defendant's suspected criminal conduct," according to a government detention motion. In that filing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Saunders also claimed that Pellicano "had conducted and/or was conducting illegal wiretapping." Details of the supposed bugging were not provided in the government motion. Pellicano, 58, faces a March 12 detention hearing. The private investigator was arrested last November after an FBI search of his Sunset Boulevard office turned up military-grade C-4 plastic explosives and anti-personnel grenades (which were hidden in a safe). He is also being probed for his alleged involvement in a bizarre plot to threaten a Los Angeles Times reporter who was investigating the actor Steven Seagal. (2 pages)