‘Die Hard’ director McTiernan gets a year in prison in wiretapping case

LOS ANGELES — “Die Hard” director John McTiernan was sentenced to a year in federal prison Monday for lying to the FBI —
and later to a federal judge — regarding his role in the wiretapping
case of disgraced Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano.

McTiernan, 59, will remain free on bail pending an
appeal of some issues in the case. If the appeal is denied, he will
begin serving his sentence, authorities said.

Pellicano was convicted two years ago of
racketeering and wiretapping. Prosecutors presented evidence at the
trial that he secretly recorded movie producer Charles Roven’s phone calls on McTiernan’s behalf. Roven was producing a movie that
McTiernan was directing and McTiernan had grown suspicious of the
producer and wanted to keep tabs on him, prosecutors alleged.

In a recording of one his own telephone calls in
2000 that was seized by the FBI, Pellicano can be heard complaining to
McTiernan about having to listen to a huge volume of Roven’s calls to
obtain useful information.

“You can’t have the thing on there listen for particular words or names?” McTiernan asked.

“Nah, nah, nah,” Pellicano responded. “That’s in the movies.”

When questioned by the FBI, McTiernan denied hiring Pellicano to wiretap anyone on his behalf.

He pleaded guilty to making false statements to
federal agents in 2006, but was allowed to withdraw his plea after
arguing that he had been given bad advice by an attorney. After the
plea was withdrawn last year, federal prosecutors tacked on a charge of
making a false statement to a U.S. district judge during proceedings in
which he withdrew the plea, alleging that he lied about his
interactions with his then-attorney.

McTiernan was headed to trial this summer when he again pleaded guilty.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Saunders, who prosecuted the case with colleague Kevin Lally,
said Monday’s sentence demonstrates that, “regardless of a person’s
status, lying to law enforcement and to a federal court are serious
crimes that compromise the integrity of the justice system and are
deserving of punishment.”

McTiernan’s lawyer, S. Todd Neal,
said he has appealed the admissibility of the recording that
purportedly implicates his client in the wiretapping scheme. Neal said
Pellicano secretly recorded his conversation with McTiernan, which is
against the law in California, and that the judge erred in ruling that the tape could be presented as evidence.

“We’re hopeful that he won’t ever serve this sentence,” Neal said.

———

(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.

Visit the Los Angeles Times on the Internet at http://www.latimes.com/.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.