UPDATE: Die Hard director John McTiernan had already pleaded guilty in July after being convicted of lying in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping and racketeering scandal that enveloped Hollywood. His one-year federal prison term was handed down this morning at a sentencing hearing presided over by the same judge he lied to, U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer. The 59-year-old McTiernan had lied to the feds in 2006 about his association with P.I.-to-the-stars Pellicano and the wiretapping of movie producer Chuck Roven while the filmmakers were shooting 2002′s Rollerball.
According to news reports, Fischer said McTiernan should have received an even harsher sentence than the year recommended by prosecutors because he didn’t accept responsibility for his actions. “The defendant doesn’t think the law applies to him,” Fischer said in court today. McTiernan, whose film credits include the original Predator and The Hunt for Red October and The Thomas Crown Affair remake, pleaded guilty in July to two counts of making false statements to the FBI and one one count of perjury to the federal judge while trying to withdraw a guilty plea. Fischer also ordered McTiernan to pay a $100,000 fine and serve three years probation. He will remain free on bond pending an appeal. His attorneys said the conditional plea agreement allows their client to challenge certain pretrial rulings made by Fischer.
Pellicano was convicted in 2008 of wiretapping Charles Roven for McTiernan and of bugging the phones of celebrities and others to get information for clients. Pellicano was found guilty on 76 of 77 counts related to racketeering, wiretapping, invasion of privacy, and conspiracy, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
In June, McTiernan lost a bid to suppress evidence in his case when Fischer denied McTiernan’s request to exclude a telephone conversation Pellicano recorded in which the two men discussed wiretapping Roven in exchange for $50,000. Then McTiernan lied to FBI agents about paying Pellicano $50,000 to eavesdrop on Roven’s phone. FThe director then pleaded guilty to perjury. And Fischer originally sentenced McTiernan in 2007 to 4 months in prison after denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. But the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco in 2008 said McTiernan should get a new hearing. So last year he was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea because his previous lawyer hadn’t told him he could have tried to suppress the incriminating recording as evidence. So now the director is going to jail.


He WILL serve time. You can make book on it.
Thank you, Anita, but Ovitz, Fields & Grey are still loose!
He should be embarassed. Now he’s going to jail for 12 months for something that I’m sure to him now seems immature and stupid! Wonder if he’ll be released early due to “overpopulation”?
Pelicano must have dirt on everybody. There’s probably many an exec who won’t get a good night’s sleep until he stops breathing.
Pellicano?
I thought he was going to jail for ROLLERBALL.
Haha. He should.
That is what McT gets for getting into business with that criminal Paul Breuls of corsan pictures who raises money on on tax shelters then steals it.
and his fraudster agents Robert Stein and Andrew Ruf at Paradigm. No one can help them now….
Poor Mc T he deserves a break but the people telling him what to do only their own interests in mind. ie. staying on good terms with
dan saunders who let them walk in exchange for cooperating against
pellicano. good luck Mc T.
How is it that McTiernan is the only client of Pellicano that’s gotten in deep shit? And 15 years? A bit much, no? Considering our government does it warrantless now too.
Wrong, d, he’s not. Terry Christensen, the big shot lawyer who hired Pellicano to wiretap, is in pretty deep shit too… disbarred and facing 3 years in prison. Several other clients were also convicted but had the good sense to plead guilty and cooperate to reduce their sentence. McTiernan is in deep shit not only because he wiretapped, but also because he committed perjury in court and obstructed justice at every turn.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues its predecessor’s illegal wiretapping of American citizens, and there is no hue and cry.
Just another crook in Hollywood who thought – and still thinks – he’s above the law.
Maybe the boys from Oz can help him find Jesus.
I am,
The Hollywood Republican
I guess this means the FilmEngine project “Crapnel” isn’t happening.
If he’s out on appeal, how can the story end with “So now the director is going to jail.” ??? I think he gets to fight his appeal, which he won last time, and depending on the outcome he may never go to jail. It’s quite amazing the judge thinks he should go to jail for more than a year because he didn’t accept responsibility. I thought that’s what copping a plea was all about. Another article said the judge was sarcastic. Just what we need in a judge – bias.
I’m not a lawyer so could someone who is please explain to me a) If McTiernan had not appealed to withdraw his guilty plea and been successful he would be doing only 4 months time. Is that right? b) If the judge says the one year sentence prosecutors called for is too short, can’t he sentence McTiernan for longer? c) If McTiernan’s appeal fails and he has to serve one year, will he be out within five minutes like Lindsay Lohan or will he have to serve the full stretch?
Can someone please let me know where I can write McTiernan while he’s incarcerated? He’s one of my favorite directors and I’d like to send him some love. Thanks in advance.
just follow the case brother.
Federal cases usually serve 80% of the total time.
Let’s review what this admitted liar who has wasted our taxpayer money has done, shall we?
McTiernan admitted to lying to a federal agent about illegal wiretapping and pled guilty. Little did he know that the feds had a tape and the conversation went EXACTLY like this:
McTIERNAN: “You can’t have the thing on there listen for particular words or names?”
PELLICANO: “Nah, nah, nah. That’s in the movies.”
So, then he did what anyone sociopath would do: He blamed his lying on jetlag and alcohol.
Next, he blamed his attorney for giving him bad advice.
When he withdrew his guilty plea, he lied again … this time to a federal judge.
Then, he blamed the FBI because they asked him questions that they already knew the answer to.
He then blamed Karl Rove that his prosecution by the feds was part of a vast-right wing conspiracy.
Next, he got a new attorney/s and appealed to try to have the illegal wiretap evidence thrown out. He failed.
Now, he is admitting AGAIN that he lied but is blaming the court for bad pre-trial rulings.
HE’S BLAMED EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE — jetlag, drinking, the FBI, KARL ROVE, the judge, his attorney — BUT HIMSELF.
(What’s next, John? That you woke up to an empty pod next to your bed?)
Yes, he has made matters much worse for himself. The guy not only dug his own hole, he’s been unwittingly furnishing it — with horse dung, I might add — to keep him nice and cozy for a year.
guys!
take it from a former vip client relations assistant to one of beverly hills’s most powerful defense attorneys who’s seen and heard and learnt it all in over 4 years:
NEVER TALK TO A FED, COP OR DETECTIVE.
it’s simple, right?
i’m sure even a mentally ill person, when given this simple direction, would follow it to a t.
but you’d be hard pressed to find highly educated, cultured, intelligent people who ignore this simple advice, because they kind they are a big shot with money and hollywood connections, or they think they have police or government connections, or they want to be kind to the detective, or they feel the need to help, share or think out loud when in the presence of a law enforcement officer and forget that lying to a federal agent is a CRIME.
when you agree to merely speak to a law enforcement officer without the presence of your attorney, you are opening yourself up completely to a very, very powerful figure in the judicial system who has the ability to conjure up a conspiracy of the ill intended and absolutely destroy your life!
the us supreme court gives law enforcement “the right” to make false allegations with the intention to get a suspect to incriminate himself during interrogation.
when you merely INTERACT with law enforcement through whatever kind of medium, you are being interrogated
you are basically giving the officer the “permission” to write down or even record every word you say to be used against you and others at the DA’s convenience.
when you talk to law enforcement, you are giving him the permission to confuse you and lead you to agree to made up statements and even write down statements you never made against yourself and others.
when you agree to talk to an officer of the law, even if it’s just yes or no answers to his questions, you are poisoning the arguments of your future defense attorney and making the work of your attorney absolutely impossible.
the police is absolutely NOT on your side!
never trust the police!
*just politely tell the officer you may be seeking counsel and ask for his business card and end the interaction by saying your attorney will contact him asap and that you do not wish to make any type of statement at the moment and that’s it!
ignore every single phone call, message, email from the detective and consult your attorney asap.*
if McTiernan had followed this simple advice, he’d never become a felon spending a year in federal prison!
it’s that simple!
have the courage to say no, learn and stand up for your rights and protect yourself and your family.
AM SURPRISED that McTiernan is actually off to prison. Thought the judge would put him on probation in lieu of the time served in the jungle with Connery on the “Medicine Man” shoot.
ROLLERBALL: A film so bad it lands the Director in “Hollywood jail” and real “Jail”.
He lied. He thought he was above the law. He has done more disgusting things to his ex-wife and her family in addition to wire tapping them. It is time that he finally has to pay for vile and illegal behavior. The sad thing is that the tax payers have tofoot the bill for his appeal and that he is allowed to change his pleas again and again and so far still gets away with it and abuses the legal system over and over.
There were hundreds-maybe thousands, of little people in Los Angeles,
who lost their jobs, their homes, their friends and their families due to Pellicano’s illegal operation. He was hired by security firms to investigate employees of large corporations. His reports gave these corporations totally manufactured stories regarding their loyal
employees. This “private investigator” hired people with criminal records to harass and intimidate people. So what you had in Los Angeles was an alliance of criminals and police-which is all that private investigators will ever be-the segway between law enforcement and gangs.
I don’t get. Paris claims she picked up the wrong purse, yet McTiernan gets the book thrown at him. Why didn’t they just give him some community service? Yeesh.
Not to mention that they also use the media, including their friends at my former employer, the L.A. Times, to smear people’s reputations and carry their water. And journalists need to: A). Get wise to it B). Educate the ignorant journalists who aren’t wise to it C). Do everything in their power to stop it from happening by exposing it when they see it.
It happened to Garry Shandling and to Bo Zenga in the Post’s Page Six. Both were in lawsuits against the Brad Grey, Bert Fields, Pellicano machine. It also happened in the pages of the L.A. Times to the FBI agent and the U.S. prosecutor on the Pellicano case who were trying to stop Pellicano and his employer’s crime spree.
If they don’t have the facts on their side, they try to smear the reputation of the person going against them/bringing suit. And with friends in the media at the ready … such as the disgraced L.A. Times reporter Chuck Philips who admitted that Pellicano was a longtime source and even attended Pellicano’s wedding … well, hey, is it any wonder that the city of L.A. was fed a bunch of bullshit during the case?
anita busch why aren’t you writing for this website or
another site like The Wrap? or dare I say the La Times. They could use you now since they have become incredibly boring and completely irrelevant.
You are a journalist and a good one.
You should not be spending your time commenting on blogs. You are far too talented for that.
MarkRossi:
Thank you for your kind comment. Plain and simple, when my phones were wiretapped, I lost many sources (people didn’t want to talk to me the phone). You have to work hard to maintain sources. I also began to equate journalism with violence and corruption. With sources afraid to talk to me and having to recuse myself from stories involving Pellicano employers and clients, it was impossible to work as a journalist anymore in the field that I was hired on for, excelled at and where my rolodex was. Besides, at that point, the PTSD was a reality.
You mention, The Wrap and L.A. Times. Sharon Waxman is the worst excuse for a journalist I have ever seen. My former employer, the L.A. Times, is the worst excuse for a newspaper I have ever seen. Pellicano reach went inside my own newspaper, and not only did the paper allow it, they invited him in … actually called him for help right after I was threatened, and then lied about it. They helped him throughout the case in the pages of the L.A. Times.
It looks like another Hollywood movie scandal.
Those ( Die Hard ) movies had some real Terrorist action in them and that ( Die Hard With A Vengance ) movie, man those riddles seemed real. I never watched a movie before that seemed so real like that before. That John McClane cop he really put it on those Terrorist didn’t he.