anita busch

Tears, Sneers Ensue as Anita Busch Faces Pellicano’s Third Degree

4:10AM Defamer Hollywood | All kinds of drama unfolded Wednesday in one of the more turbulent days of the Anthony Pellicano trial, with ex-journalist Anita Busch following fork-tongued Michael Ovitz to a slow death on the witness stand. As if you had to ask, the cross-examination showdown between Busch and Pellicano — whom the writer all but accused in court of infamously harrassing her out of writing articles about Ovitz after joining the LA Times — did not go smoothly: More »

Pellicano Shadow Hangs Over Reporter Whose Digging Started it All

5:53AM Defamer Hollywood | Speaking as someone who once had his own life threatened by a fairly powerful, decidedly unhappy source, I particularly empathize today with Anita Busch, the former star trade reporter whose receipt of a dead fish, a rose and a note screaming “STOP” foisted the Anthony Pellicano investigation horror on an unwitting Hollywood nearly six years ago. Rapidly approaching her testimony date in the Pellicano trial, Busch granted a rare interview in a NY Times profile that is about the biggest bummer we’ve read since, well, maybe ever: Ms. Busch’s discovery of the tap on her phones, prosecutors say, led to another search of Mr. Pellicano’s offices and a new phase of the investigation — one that metastasized into racketeering and other charges against him and more than a dozen accused co-conspirators. More »