Beverly Hills Wiretapping Case: Defendant Claims Private Eye Hired for Protection

The ex-wife of a late billionaire philanthropist testified Friday that she hired disgraced private investigator Anthony Pellicano for her personal protection and because of legal problems caused by her spouse's daughter, not to try and get an edge in their eventual divorce.

Jacqueline Colburn, who was married for about a year and a half to Richard D. Colburn, told the Los Angeles Superior Court panel hearing trial of a civil suit against her that she paid the now-imprisoned private eye in cash and jewelry for his services.

Three children of Richard D. Colburn from a prior marriage—Richard W. Colburn, Carol Colburn-Hogel and Keith W. Colburn—along with Colette McDougall, former assistant to Richard D. Colburn, sued Pellicano and Jacqueline Colburn in December 2007 for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The plaintiffs allege that in 1999 Jacqueline Colburn hired Pellicano to install wiretapping and eavesdropping devices at her and her late-husband's Beverly Hills home.

McDougall and the Colburn children believe hundreds of conversations between Richard D. Colburn, his family members and business colleagues were recorded over a period of months and perhaps years, according to the suit. But Jacqueline Colburn said she had received threats from Carol Colburn—Hogel's then-boyfriend, Vernon Moss—and that she also suspected her husband's daughter was financing civil litigation brought against her by two other people.

Colburn said she was pregnant at the time with the couple's second child and under a lot of stress. She said her husband's children did not like her.

"It was a strained relationship because their father married someone 47 years younger than him that was of Mexican descent," Colburn said.

According to the court papers of the plaintiffs' attorney Lawrence Segal, Jacqueline Coburn paid Pellicano at least $115,000 in cash and gave him $500,000 in jewelry for his work. She testified the jewelry was actually worth about $300,000 and acknowledged she did not seek its return.

Jacqueline Colburn, who was introduced to Pellicano through an attorney she contracted at the time, began writing checks to the private investigator after he played a tape for her of her husband having an intimate conversation with another woman, according to Segal's court papers. However, Jacqueline Colburn told jurors the tape dealt with a different topic and that her husband wanted Pellicano to play it for her. She described her husband as a man who wielded considerable power in the business world and also said he sometimes bullied her.

Jacqueline Colburn said she stopped using Pellicano's services in October 2000 when she moved with her children to Hawaii, but Segal's court papers state she also signed a marital property settlement that month.

Richard D. Colburn made a fortune in construction-related businesses and endowed the Colburn School of the Performing Arts in Los Angeles. He married multiple times and one of his spouses was Jacqueline Colburn, a defendant in the suit. The Colburns married in 1998—she was 38 and he was 85—and divorced in 2002. He died two years later.

A witness during criminal proceedings against Pellicano testified that he saw Jacqueline Colburn at the investigator's office wearing headphones and listening to live conversations, according to the plaintiffs' court papers.

Pellicano was convicted in 2008 of conspiracy, wiretapping and other charges and is serving a 15-year federal prison sentence.

The Colburn children and McDougall are seeking a default judgment against him. In his court papers, Segal maintains Jacqueline Colburn "escaped prosecution by cooperating with federal authorities in their efforts to prosecute Pellicano and expressly admitted to her complicity in wiretapping activity to FBI agents who interviewed her."

Attorneys for Jacqueline Colburn say the woman's stepchildren and McDougall waited too long to file the suit and insist there is no evidence she instructed Pellicano to do anything illegal.

Be sure to follow Beverly Hills Patch on Twitter and "Like" us on Facebook.