Exclusive excerpt from "Pellicano's Enforcer" - a book-in-progress by Paul Barresi with Raymond Strait:

The Bagman parties with Victoria Gotti at the Pelican's former client Steven Seagal's biz partner Julius Nasso's estate

"A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy or
the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof. The throwing
out of malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain,
which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavorable
impression, it is not necessary that what is said be true. The damage
is done in the mere telling of it." William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

On the day that the Feds arrested Anthony Pellicano in the fall of 2002, I'd just finished dousing a potential five alarm fire about to engulf the career, reputation and livelihood of Pellicano's most prized Hollywood motion picture star client. The role I played in this particular case involved much more than your average everyday investigative footwork; the culmination of several weeks of intensive probing, interviews and background research into allegations about Tom Cruise that, if proven, would have deep-sixed his multi-million dollar film career forever.

He called himself Big Red. When not traveling around the world, offering up his sex for hire services to wealthy Johns and lonely rich widows (who splurge on stud services when not blowing their money on botox, mini-face lifts, full body massages and chemical peels), Red acted in porn films. A tall, lanky, light complected, average looking twenty-five year old really had only one thing going for himself. He often boasted, "Hey, they don't call me Big Red just because of my freckled face and carrot top."

In the early summer of 2001, Big Red had just finished his pool side sex scene in a porn film I produced.. While seated at the patio table, writing checks for the cast and crew, he came over to the table and sat down in the chair next to me, but did not speak a word. I thought he either didn't want to break my concentration or, more than likely - as most of these porn actors do after they finish a scene - he probably wanted more money. The way they do it is by complaining that they had to fuck for hours under the hot sun in awkward positions, or the scene took much longer than they anticipated, causing them to miss an appointment with a paying john. I've heard it all before.

Red made five times more than the measly five hundred I paid him, when turning a trick. However, it is not always about the money with these young men and women in porn. Exposure in a porn film is the best free publicity a prostitute can get. Make no mistake, the unspoken truth is, prostituion and porn go hand in hand. Porn stars use the videos they appear in as infomercials to help peddle their ass, literally. I kept thinking, what's on this kid's mind? He's too quiet. Nobody is that courteous. Especially a self-centered, self-consumed hustler. Maybe he's just waiting for the appropriate time to start a conversation.

I paused a moment and took a sip of my iced-tea just to give him an in. Producing gay porn, for me, is a living - not a life style. I make over a quarter million a year making porn. I don't have to be sold on the idea that sex sells. So when Red proceeded to cue me in on a book he was writing, about his paid romances with some of Hollywood's biggest stars, I refilled my glass and gave him my undivided attention.

"Who are some of these big named stars you've been intimate with?"

Red rattled off a laundry list of celebrities he supposedly had sex with. "My book is going to rip the town apart."

He spoke with such conviction, I truly believed his story. I wanted to believe it. Something in his manner tripped my money-making instincts. Anything that would rip Hollywood apart interested me because such stories made tabloid headlines. A sex soaked story on the front page of The National Enquirer adds up to big bucks.

Red did not lay it all out to me at once. True to his trade, he put on the charm before spilling his guts. He said "I'm very aware of your reputation for knowing people in high places who could make things happen." He'd apparently done his homework. Having worked in the sex business for more than 30 years and in the Hollywood film and television arena, as an actor, did have its advantages. Not too many people have stood as firmly perched atop the fence from which to observe both industries equally. Pellicano quickly saw the advantage in someone with my expertise when I first began working for him in 1993 on the Michael Jackson case.

After Red finishing kissing up, he got down to the real reason for confiding in me about his proposed book which, up to that time, had been kept tightly under wraps. He asked if I would introduce him to the right people who could help him land a movie deal for his life story. I explained some of the realities of trying to sell a non-fiction story, about personal relationships with celebrities, intimate or otherwise. "Corroborating your sexcapades with the average Joe will be tough enough, let alone proving all these sex trysts with major Hollywood movie stars."

I told him that making those kinds of claims could potentially bring on extortion charges and most assuredly lead to law suits.

That didn't matter to Red. He adamantly stood his guns, claiming that he could enumerate the dates, times and details of various sordid sex acts that he engaged in with his celebrity partners. "I've kept a detailed diary and I have receipts from restaurants, hotels, night clubs, plus other documentation as well as eye witnesses who are willing to go on the record to support my claims."

You can't get much better than that. Now, I'm thinking if this guy is on the level, I can make a bundle of money in any number of ways. In my mind's eye, I first saw a story with The National Enquirer.

"Can I interview you on tape?" More often than not, people are willing to let you get them on tape when they think they've got a shot at selling a story for an enormous amount of money. "Sure," he said, without hesitation.

We made arrangements to sit down together in a taped session at my home. The following is excerpted from our first interview on August 21, 2001:

PAUL: What is your current occupation?

RED: I am self-employed. I work as an actor, a porn star and escort, a massage therapist and I do bartending and sometimes dancing and stripping in shows. I travel quite a bit, as an escort, around the world, and I do floral arrangements.

PAUL: You advertise your escort services in various gay newspapers and escort web sites. Describe the photo you use to attract potential customers.

RED: I'm wearing Calvin Klein briefs and my penis is visible. The shape of it is visible through the briefs and I have a leather jacket that I'm removing, and showing my bare chest and my red hair and I'm not sure if I have just a little bit of pubic hair sticking out on that particular one, but that was on boyzusa.com. Now, one very successful photograph of me is, me with sort of a buzz haircut and the light shining and making my red hair very, very bright and I have a long sleeved shirt on, which is completely unbuttoned and it looks like I'm undressing, and it says BIG RED. I'm known by that name around the world because when I met Tom Cruise, he even said - the first thing he said was, 'I hear they call you Big Red.' And he loves redheads!

PAUL: Okay, before we get ahead of ourselves, let me ask you a few other preliminary questions. How many clients do you service on a monthly basis?

RED: Well, now sometimes I'll take a month or two off, just to catch up but, in a good month, I'll service about three to five hundred men.

PAUL: You stated you attracted celebrity clientele, one of whom is Tom Cruise. Name some of the others. Just their names for now.

RED: There's Antonio Bandares, Jason Priestly and country singers Garth Brooks and Randy Travis.

PAUL: Okay, how did Garth Brooks find you?

RED: On boyzusa.com.

PAUL: Let's fast forward and talk about the moment of truth now. What ultimately led to making you an absolute believer that the person trying to reach you was, indeed, Garth Brooks?

RED: It was pretty simple- because through his friend - I only know him as Doctor Paul, who picked me up at the Nashville airport. I flew in on the red-eye and he arranged the hotel room, a mile from the airport. The Red Roof Inn. He first took me to MacDonald's for breakfast. He didn't ask me what I wanted, just ordered for me. I got one of those ninety-nine-cent breakfasts.

PAUL: So all of this was arranged for Brooks through Doctor Paul?

RED: That's correct.

PAUL: Okay, you're in the hotel room. Then what?

RED: I went into the room. Doctor Paul parked out front, sitting in his car. I saw him through the window. I sat down on the bed and not too much longer afterward, a few minutes maybe, then a knock on the door. Dressed in ordinary clothes, no cowboy hat, no boots - nothing. Mr. Garth brooks came through the door to visit me. He said he wanted to be fucked in the ass. I was smart enough to be prepared for anything goes and I recognized him immediately. So I went into the bathroom and, because he was so overweight and disgusting, I took a Viagra, got hard, and put on a condom. He just wanted to go for a ride for hours and hours and hours and hours.

PAUL: Really?

RED: Yes. Well, it lasted really for about two hours, but when you are fucking a whale it seems like eternity and then, I was told that Doctor Paul would come back and pay me. Brooks left. He didn't even shower or anything. Just got up, threw on his shirt, pants and tennis shoes and left. About fifteen minutes later Doctor Paul came in, paid me - I think five or six hundred dollars - and then took me immediately to the airport to catch the first flight back to L.A.

I then brought up the subject of his alleged encounter with Tom Cruise. That interested me more than the others because I knew that's where the big bucks would come in. The tabs love anything that connects Cruise even remotely to the word gay because there is always a major reaction from him. He is one of the most homophobic actors in the world.

I urged him to continue. This particular encounter, he said, took place in London during the filming of Eyes Wide Shut, on location there.

RED: Marcello (club host) took me to a room outside this club to wait and I just sat there. Then two men came into the room. They told me it would be a very simple job and that they were going to pay me in cash, showing me an envelope with approximately five hundred UK pounds in cash.

PAUL: Then what?

RED: They took me with them in a car and we drove, I think to the Highgate area, to a house.
Nothing spectacular. We went into the back of the house where Tom Cruise was sitting on a small sofa. A mat had been spread out on the floor. Cruise, dressed in what looked like a body suit, looked so cute. Either a black or very dark navy blue body suit for wrestling. He had on a little cap thingy, but the chin strap wasn't attached. Grinning and gloating at me, he said, "Strip down to your underwear and play with me for a little while." That's really the only conversation we had. We played. We wrestled. He was nice to me. I mean, he let me win, then he asked me if it was okay if he could rip off my briefs and told me he would buy me a new pair.

I remember looking very close into his eyes and (I could tell because I used to tint my eyebrows and lashes) - maybe not his brows, but for sure his lashes were tinted because they had been growing out and I could see kind of like a lighter color around the edges of his eyes and if you look closer, he is a very fair skinned man.

PAUL: You wrestled around with him for how long?

RED: About an hour and a half, maybe.

PAUL: And what was going on?

RED: I was in my underwear and he was touching my butt mostly and, his finger - through the underwear touched my anus and he was stroking my balls, just a little bit. It was quick. He whispered in my ear, "It's okay. Just relax. Just relax." At one time he actually picked me up and threw me down and said, "I think red heads are really hot, and I hear you're called Big Red." Then, once my underwear was off, he got into some serious stroking. He told me to jack off so he could watch. I did and after I came, he threw me a towel. I got dressed and then the two men drove me back to the club in London.

After interviewing Big Red, I immediately drafted up an agreement. The deal was, that he would pay me fifteen percent of whatever amount of money he got from The National Enquirer for his story. I telephoned The National Enquirer the very next day and they gave the lead to Alan Smith. I knew Alan very well. I had dealings with him in the past. I never liked him but, in the smut peddling business, one can't be picky. Smith came to my house the next afternoon. He listened to the audio taped interview I conducted with Red. A little later, Red arrived. Smith asked him several pertinent questions and took a lot of notes. Red recounted pretty much what he had told me. When we were finished, Smith said he'd work the lead and get back to us.

Three days later, neither Red nor I had as yet heard from Smith, so I placed a call to his office. He told me that The Enquirer had decided not to do the story because there were too many things he could not stand up. For example, the host at the London bar named Marcello. Nobody ever heard of him, according to Smith.

I thanked Smith and telephoned Red right away to let him know The Enquirer passed on the story. I knew Red saw thousands of dollars slipping through his fingers but I had only begun to explore ways to spin Red's story into a small fortune. I decided to give it to Anthony Pellicano.

I contacted Pellicano and told him about Red's alleged claims of having had a homosexual affair that involved a lot of groping and grappling with his client, Tom Cruise. Anthony did not seem overly surprised, but he made it very clear that he needed to contact an attorney by the name of Ricardo Cistero right away to tell him about it. I would later learn that Cistero had been one of Pellicano's former private investigators, before becoming an attorney. Mr. Cistero (as I would later find out) now worked for none other than attorney Bert Fields who, would you believe, was the attorney for Tom Cruise. Coincidence? Absolutely not.

I met with Pellicano in his office the following day to debrief him on Red's story, after which he instructed me on how to deal with Red. "I don't care how you do it, but you need to bring him in here, as soon as possible, so I can interrogate him." He then complimented me on a job well done. "You did the right thing in telling me about this kid." That's when he guaranteed me no less than a $60 thousand dollar payday for a job well done, which left me ecstatic. I'd never gotten that kind of money for celebrity damage control before. I'd always wondered about the going rate for saving a mega-star's ass. I didn't have a clue, but sixty grand sure felt about right.

I left Pellicano's office and called Red to give him the good news - that his story still had life. "There's a very powerful guy with a lot of important connections by the name of Anthony Pellicano who wants to meet you." I told him that Pellicano had an office on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, adjacent to Beverly Hills. "I shared your story with him and he seems pretty sure that he can help you get a movie deal."

Very pleased, Red promised to clear his schedule for the next day in order to meet with Pellicano. Like clockwork, Big Red and I waltzed into Pellicano's office at twelve o'clock sharp. I announced myself (and Red) to the receptionist. Ten minutes later a clean-shaven Pellicano, entered the reception area to greet us. As customary, I found him decked out in an impeccable white dress shirt, tie and dark slacks, his hair neatly combed back. Always the consummate gentleman. Pellicano smiled and shook our hands.

Speaking softly, he said "This way," as he led us through the door down a corridor, into his spacious back office. Motioning me to sit on the sofa, with the grace of a maestro he then directed Red to sit in a specific chair. I would not know the significance of that particular large, black leather chair until much later, but it certainly explained why Pellicano took very few notes during the entire hour and a half interrogating Big Red.

From the moment Red sat down Pellicano's demeanor took a different form. He became all business. Not exactly a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde physical transformation, but still a drastic personality change. Not taking his eyes off Red, with pen poised, he sat straight up in his chair and pulled his yellow lined legal pad closer. As Pellicano set the stage for a brilliant one man show about to unfold. I had a front row scene to high drama in its rarest form.

I sensed the tension and felt the heat rise as Pellicano, not missing a beat, began his interrogation of Red. Without blinking an eye, Pellicano leaned slightly forward in his chair, and addressed Red with a dead-pan stare.

"Now listen to me very closely. I want you to tell me everything. I want to know what the weather was like when you drove to the estate, outside London to meet Tom Cruise. I want to know the names of streets you traveled on to get to the country house where you say you and Tom Cruise wrestled and had sexual relations. That's what you are saying, right?"

It took Pellicano less than five seconds to paralyze Red into inaction. "Are you listening to me? You claim to have had sexual relations with Tom Cruise. Am I correct?"

Now Red seemed to have collected himself and responded with a very short, but direct, "Yes.".

"Where was Nicole at the time? They were shooting a film, right? Tell me the name of the film they were doing when all this happened."

Red softly answered, "Eyes Wide Shut."

Anthony blasted Red. "I didn't hear you."

Red fired back, so loud he could be heard in the neighboring office, "Eyes Wide Shut!"

Throughout the hour and a half interrogation Pellicano delivered his questions in rapid fire succession. I noticed that Red, at times, seemed frazzled at the simplest questions. But I have to give it to him. He, surprisingly, held his own. However, I had no doubt that Pellicano intended to shake him up, trying to see if he would fall apart under pressure.

"Look at me when I am talking to you!" Pellicano did not ask, he demanded. "Describe the sound of Tom Cruise's voice? What distinguishable marks does he have on his face? And, I'm going to tell you that right now. There are distinguishable marks that you can only see up close. So, if you are lying to me, I'm going to know."

The master interrogator dominated the scene - and - seemed to truly enjoy it, shooting off questions without pause; without seeming to take a breath. One after another. On and on. Consecutively, in staccato fashion. "What color is his hair? What shape are his eyebrows? Tell me about his eye lashes? Are they long? Are they dark, or are they lighter than the hair on his head? How tall is he? Is he left handed or right handed? Do you know? Did you see his penis?"

The merciless grilling continued non-stop. Red did not have a second to think. Pellicano did not want him to falter, hesitate or take a breath or pause long enough to create or invent a tale. He wanted the truth and nothing but the truth. He conducted one of the most masterful interrogations I've ever seen. I got to see first hand, the maestro at work. What a learning experience. I sat in silence, on the edge of my seat.

The bombardment questions continued. "What was the limo driver's name? You say there were two men who took you to Tom Cruise' country home outside London. What were their names?"

"I remember one of them. A big burly looking guy named Mickey." Red detailed the stocky, barrel-chested limo driver right down to his hairy knuckles.

"What gate did the driver use to enter onto the property? You say the home was outside London. Where outside London? Describe the landscape. Did you walk upstairs into the house? What door did you enter through? Were there security guards? Once you entered the premises did you walk down down a hallway to a room?"

Red's mouth appeared to drop open but no words came out. He seemed to be dumbfounded, but eventually he came around answering all of Pellicano's questions in great detail.

" Describe the room where you wrestled and had sex with Cruise. Were there pictures on the wall? Were the windows curtained or did they have shutters? Were they draped? Describe the paintings you saw on the wall."

After an hour, Red became so petrified, he began looking away and stuttered when he spoke. I thought Pellicano would cause him to either crack or shit his pants. Strange as it may seem, however, Red survived Pellicano's brutal questioning.

Anthony later pulled me aside and said, "I think this kid's telling the truth. I find him to be credible." It made no difference to me. It is well known in celebrity circles, that an accusation doesn't have to be true, to create a smear campaign. Pellicano cashed in on that concept. A Hollywood star can't afford even a whiff of scandal, because a tall tale can cause irreparable damage.

On the way down the hill to drop Red off at his West Hollywood apartment, I queried him further about his alleged sexual dalliances with Andrea Boccelli. The idea of Red being with Cruise didn't affect me one bit, but the thought of him having sex with the legendary opera singer, Andrea Boccelli, bugged me beyond words.

I'm a huge Boccelli fan.

"You say you were with Andrea Boccelli?"
"Oh, Yes," he replied with a huge grin on his face.
At that moment I wanted to wring his neck I wanted to wring Red's neck. Instead, I invited him to lunch.

We went to a popular restaurant in West Hollywood, near the Strip. After we sat down and ordered, I said him "I'm curious, what is it that you did with Boccelli?"

"I'll draw you a map." He asked the waitress for a pen, flipped his place mat over and then proceeded to sketch out the entire Mediterranean coast line, right down to the boot of Sicily. He plotted out the itinerary he supposedly shared with Boccelli, down the Italian coast onto the French Riviera, pointing out all the places where he claimed the two of them stopped along the way.
I asked, "What did Andrea Boccelli like to do with you sexually?"
He said, "Oh, he enjoyed the smells. You know, the natural scent of a man."
I thought to myself, Oh yeah. I get it. Boccelli's blind so what senses are left?

While waiting to hear from Pellicano I continued gathering intelligence on Red, and faxing the info to Pellicano as I received it. After ten days went by, unable to reach Anthony on the telephone and not hearing anything further from him, I decided to forward everything to Bert Fields himself, just to make sure he was getting it the way I'd been presenting it to Anthony. I covered my bases. I didn't care if Pellicano took the credit, I just wanted to make sure he didn't try to cash in behind my back. Up to this point, whenever I called Pellicano's office, they told me he either was out of the office or in a meeting. The same old Hollywood excuses. I had a feeling in my solar plexus, that he might be trying to cut me out of the deal.

I had better luck contacting the Fields office. As long as I could speak with somebody on the damage control team, I figured things would be cool, moving along nicely. I spoke first to Ricardo Cistero, and then Bert Fields got on the phone to thank me for doing such a good job. I only had two conversations with Fields, but I do recall during one of them, expressing how concerned I'd been about Red's alleged claims to have been sexually intimate with Andrea Boccelli. I asked if he could do something about it, that I wanted to help Boccelli.

"We can certainly contact his people," Fields assured me. I felt more at ease.

I continued faxing Fields background information on Red as it came into my possession. I did not discuss finances or payment with either Fields or Cistero.

Several days following my last conversation with Fields, Anthony telephoned me at home over the weekend. He'd never done that before. I remember it well because for the first time, he called me honey. He had good news and bad news.

The good news - So far, all the information Red gave him seemed to be checking out. Tom Cruise had, indeed, been in London shooting Eyes Wide Shut on the days Red alleged to have been there and that he did have a body guard named Mickey. Also, Mickey happened to be currently doing time for murder. He expected to receive a mug shot shortly.

It all sounded so convoluted and bizarre to me. Things were moving along and I assumed that the six figure payday would be coming in shortly.

Then came the bad news. Cruise' people were not willing to pay me sixty grand. Pellicano said, "It's going to be much less."

"How much less?" By the tone of my voice, I knew Pellicano could tell that I wasn't happy. "You mean, like thirty grand?"

"Not even close. More like five thousand."

"That's bullshit."

"There's nothing you can do about it."

"Yeah. I bet." My first thoughts were that the payday had already come and gone during the time I'd been trying to reach Pellicano on the telephone. He'd been dodging my calls. No doubt striking his own deal with Cruise and cutting out the middle man. ME!

Meanwhile, I get a call from Red who tells me he got a cease and desist letter from Tom Cruise' attorney, Bert Fields, threatening a lawsuit against him should he even think about writing a book detailing his sex romp with his client. Of course, I had to play dumb. I asked Red to fax the letter to me, which he did right away. I'm glad he did because, had he time to think about it, he would have put two and two together and figure that I'd been part of the plan to stop him in his tracks. Eventually, he did figure it out, but his problems were just beginning.

"I'm hearing strange clicks on my telephone." It also spooked him that a suspicious van had been parked out in front of his apartment day and night. "Everytime I go out, I'm sure I'm being followed."

Even after I figured Pellicano had duped me, I still continued to run a game on Red. I hadn't received my lousy five grand. I didn't intend to get screwed out of that, too. So I continued to meet with Red, playing dumb, going along, offering a sympathetic ear.

"Sounds to me that the possible wire-tapping and unmarked van outside your apartment has Scientology written all over it," reminding him that Tom Cruise happened to be a high ranking Scientologist, regarded by the cult as a God. "You come down on Tom Cruise, you risk having the weight of the entire cult coming down hard on your ass."

I suggested that, for his own good, he would be wise to get out of town and lay low for awhile. "A change of climate would do you good and be a lot healthier." He took my advice and did just that.
Before he left for New York he said to me, "You were in this all along weren't you?" My expression gave away the fact that things were not all that they appeared to be. That's when I told him he needed to move on, that he was way over his head.

"Look at the upside. A change of climate will be much healthier."

Red put his furniture in storage, moved out of his apartment in two days and like the full moon, eclipsed himself. He seemed appreciative, as though the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. He flew out of Los Angeles and from there to Europe to begin a very long, much required vacation.

That's how it went down.

Following Red's exit from Hollywood, Pellicano still dodged my calls, so I resorted to calling Fields office and asked to be paid. On the phone Bert Fields was very coy. "Ahhh, now, tell me again. Tell me how much we owe you Paul?"

"Five grand."

"Okay. We'll get the check out to you right away."

Cost of Saving The Heterosexual Family Man's career? $5k

Pellicano obtained a lot of dirt on celebrities from certain tabloid reporters, including Alan Smith, who stood to make a hell of a lot more money from Pellicano for squashing a celebrity scandal than he did from a by-line at the tabloids.

I had no way of knowing, at the time, that Alan Smith went to Pellicano following his interview with Big Red at my home, or that he blew up the story at the Enquirer by telling his editor that none of the information Big Red gave him checked out. It's a time-worn practice - they do it all the time. The Enquirer's editor only have the word of their reporters. So, if Alan Smith says the story doesn't check out, that's it. Quashing Big Red's story at The National Enquirer is as simple as that.

Pellicano arranges to have stories killed that way all the time. My having brought Red to Pellicano only served to force Bert Fields to go through the motions by writing the cease and desist legal letter to Big Red. Fact is, Pellicano and Alan Smith already had the kid bagged.

Why am I so sure of this? It is evident in the from a secretly taped telephone conversation, between tabloid reporter Jim Mitteager and Anthony Pellicano, that took place on January 7, 1994, which came to me through Jim Mitteager's estate, along with thousands of hours of other tapes, following his death in 1997.

Alan Smith was one of Anthony Pellicano's key informants at The National Enquirer (a superstar reporter who gets good information and a lot of plush assignments). As revealed on this particular tape, Pellicano spoke with Smith on a daily basis. Smith fed the Pelican information on what stories were being worked at the tabloid and on what celebrity.

Ironically, I did not start listening to, and transcribing the Mitteager tapes until shortly after Anthony Pellicano's arrest.

January 7, 1994: The National Enquirer reporter, Jim Mitteager, talks to Anthony Pellicano on the phone:
PELLICANO: This kid (Kevin Smith) from Splash News. How important a guy is he in town?
MITTEAGER: He's becoming a player because he's energetic and he knows the tabloid game.
PELLICANO: Yeah, I know that but how important is he? The reason I say that is, I'm about to end his career.
MITTEAGER: (Laughing) He's not that important. He double deals a lot.
PELLICANO: Yeah, but does he get good information?
MITTEAGER: Yeah. His star is not high up there for having great sources or anything like that. What he does is he covers breaking stories and he weasels his way into certain ones and he comes up with a score, but he's not a super star.
PELLICANO: Who is a super star?
MITTEAGER: Alan Smith for The Enquirer.
PELLICANO: Alan Smith calls me all the time. He just called me the other day.
MITTEAGER: He gets a lot of plush assignments. You see the way this game works ...
PELLICANO: Yeah, but that's what my point is. I want you to get the plush assignments.
MITTEAGER: Yeah. Right. Exactly. So, what I need is leads.
PELLICANO: I'll take care of that.
MITTEAGER: Yeah.
PELLICANO: Now, who else is a big player?
MITTEAGER: What's that broad's name?
PELLICANO: Beverly Ekhart.
MITTEAGER: Beverly Ekhart is a player. Steve Tennie is a player over at The Star.
PELLICANO: Okay, here is one of the things I want you to do. I'm going to give you a thousand dollars for this. I want you to give me the names and telephone numbers of all of the people that you know at all of the tabloids.
MITTEAGER: Okay.
PELLICANO: I'm going to give you a grand just for doing that.
MITTEAGER: Okay. Well, I got the Globe and lots of Enquirer people and Cliff (Dunn) will give you Star people.
PELLICANO: Well, get it all together and have it ready for me when I see you.

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.

As one tab reporter so eloquently mused, "It's all about con men conning con men."