Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Honey, why did you change the hotel again? Did something happen in the afternoon? Director Penny Marshall is a little worried. She is afraid that you have other ideas about the project."

Diane received Ronald's notice and went directly to the Wilshire Hotel to meet Ronald. Once the production cost of a movie exceeds 10 million, it faces great pressure to recover the cost. Many times, a change of mind of an executive or a slight change in the market situation will cause a lot of changes, and the project is suspended or even cancelled.

Diane thought Ronald was making several movies at the same time, and was afraid that he would have financial pressure, so she took the initiative to ask. Penny Marshall had already told herself that she would stand by Diane.

"There is no problem. I am not worried about this matter...Diane, I have something to tell you, don't be nervous..." Ronald held Diane's shoulders and asked her to sit on the sofa, and then told Diane about his being wiretapped.

"Who would do this? Is it to wiretap me?" Diane was a child star and had heard a lot of rumors in the industry. She was not surprised to hear this, but asked Ronald calmly.

"I don't know, there are a few suspects, they should be targeting me." Ronald continued to explain the situation. The wiretap line was Ronald's long-term hotel suite, and Diane's apartment was fine.

"Who could it be? I heard from my father that in the past Hollywood, some producers with connections to the mafia would do this. I didn't expect someone would want to do this to you..." Diane gently stroked Ronald's obviously nervous neck.

Ronald smelled the perfume on Diane's body, and his heart inexplicably relaxed, "Tomorrow morning, we should know who wants to know my business secrets."

...

Ronald got up very early in the morning, he was waiting for news. Diane ordered breakfast and he ate absent-mindedly, pouring the sugar cube in the coffee into the orange juice without knowing it.

Finally, at ten o'clock in the morning, the bodyguard Daniel called.

"We caught someone..."

"Great, who is it?"

"It's a bit unexpected, this person is from the Beverly Hills Police Department."

"Huh?"

It was unexpected. The Daniel team set up an ambush at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. In the warehouse where the tape recorder was placed, the person who came to change the tape was actually a plainclothes detective from the Beverly Hills Police Department.

This person showed his police badge to the staff when he entered the hotel. Without much hindrance, he went to the warehouse behind the telephone exchange room, opened the door and was about to change the old tape on the tape recorder, and was caught red-handed.

His name is Craig Stevens. After being caught, he fiercely told Daniel's team not to meddle in other people's business. After seeing them call the police, he didn't look nervous at all. When the uniformed patrolman (lower than the plainclothes detective) who came after hearing the news came, he proudly showed his police badge and said that he was performing police duties.

Only when Daniel said that according to the LAPD's law enforcement rules, if someone reports a felony to the police, no matter whether the person arrested is from the law enforcement department or not, he needs to report to the police station, did Craig Stevens show a surprised look. He didn't expect that the person who came was an expert.

"Are you sure you want to do this? I have to remind you that although you have this power, if you do this, your boss will encounter a lot of inconvenience in the future." Craig Stevens is an old policeman who can bluff people. He wanted to scare Daniel as soon as he spoke.

"Save this for your lawyer." Daniel pushed him and indicated that he would also go with him to supervise the law enforcement process of the Beverly Police Department.

The group had already taken the evidence seized at the scene, and went to the Beverly Police Department with Craig Stevens and the uniformed patrol officers, and complained to the Internal Affairs Department (a department that specializes in investigating police misconduct or criminal behavior).

Ronald made a prompt decision and could not let the suspect get away easily. He immediately called Mickey Kent, a well-known lawyer in Los Angeles, and asked him to go to the police station to put pressure on him as soon as possible. He also called his personal lawyer Lindsay Doll and asked her to come and deal with this troublesome matter.

As a victim, Ronald also came to the Beverly Hills Police Department. Accompanied by Mickey Kent, he asked the chief of the Beverly Hills Police Department to investigate and informed his superior police department.

The Beverly Hills Police Department is just like the famous hit movie "Beverly Hills Cop". The entire police department is overstaffed, but they are only dealing with trivial cases and often helping ladies find pets.

Craig Stevens is a senior detective. He started as a street patrolman and has been in his current position. He is an experienced old man. His partner is still a newcomer and listens to him in everything, otherwise he would not let him act alone without his partner.

So, when the entire police department learned that a Hollywood director had come to complain about Craig Stevens wiretapping, their first reaction was that it was impossible. The Beverly Hills Police Department had abundant funding sources, and the property tax here was in the top five zip code areas in the United States. Normal detectives could get by without doing such dirty work.

Mickey Kent's gray eyes stared at the sheriff who came to explain to Ronald. The sheriff's lips chattered, trying to explain that this was probably a misunderstanding. He least wanted this matter to get out of hand. People from the Beverly Hills Police Department wiretapped Hollywood stars?

Celebrities are the bread and butter of their police stations. If he arouses resentment from this group, his position will not last long.

"You know, my client's bodyguard took action after discovering the leak and being bugged. That Craig came straight to the place where the recorder was placed in the morning. He obviously knew where the tape recorder was." Kent was impatient. Interrupting the Sheriff's speech, he stated Ronald's request directly.

"This is not what a citizen should do. If you find out that someone is eavesdropping, you should call the police as soon as possible..."

"Then what? Call the police so that your internal people can handle it easily?" Ronald stabbed angrily.

"Mr. Li, I have to say that this is a very baseless accusation..."

"What my client said is that your police station is not efficient in handling alarms..." Mickey must have stopped Ronald a little and signaled that he would handle it.

"In any case, this matter should be handed over to the police." The police chief also wanted to quibble. Then the phone rang.

"I think that's a call for you." Attorney Mickey Kent narrowed his eyes and said to the police chief.

"Ah?" Sure enough, the subordinate turned the phone over, "Hello, I'm John."

"John, this is Ira Reiner, the prosecutor of Los Angeles County. I received a complaint from a citizen. Your police officers are eavesdropping on a famous Hollywood director?"

In Los Angeles, unlike New York, the county district attorney's office has a large jurisdiction, including the area where Beverly Hills is located.

The prosecutor (DA) is an elected position and will not miss this opportunity to establish his upright image.

Early in the morning, Ella Reiner received a call from Mickey Kent, a lawyer with whom she had dealt with many times. This time, instead of standing across from her to cause trouble, he sent him a favor.

"Yes, sir, we will handle this matter according to standard procedures and initiate an internal investigation. Yes, I will send regular investigation progress reports to my superiors and the District Attorney's Office..."

The police chief put down the phone, rubbed his fat face, changed his face, smiled at Ronald, and said, "Don't worry, no matter if it is done by someone inside us or someone outside, we are very concerned about this kind of intrusion on celebrities' privacy." We will investigate everything according to standard procedures and we will definitely give you the truth.”

Ronald got a satisfactory result, stood up, shook hands with the police chief, said a few polite words, and then walked out with his lawyer and bodyguard.

"Hey, these big Hollywood celebrities always feel like someone is interested in their private lives. You know, I'm just there to investigate another case."

Craig Stevens is a veteran. The person responsible for guarding him this time was a female police officer, and he was not handcuffed. He was still showing off his seniority, drinking coffee and chatting with the policewoman.

"Really? Have you met a lot of celebrities, Craig?" The policewoman didn't know the seriousness and thought it was another case of a Hollywood star bullying others. Many residents of Beverly Hills are movie stars, and it can be said that they have little respect for these little police officers.

Just as Ronald and his group walked out and passed the detention room, Ronald saw Craig who was still sitting with his legs crossed and drinking coffee. He stopped and looked at the police chief. As if to ask, "Is this your standard procedure?"

The old police chief had no expression on his face. He just waved to the police officers from the Internal Investigation Department who came with him. Two police officers with different signs came forward. One put handcuffs on Craig, and the other read out his powers. and internal investigation process.

"John, is this necessary?" Craig Stevens motioned to the sergeant.

"The police union will arrange a lawyer for you, if you can't hire a lawyer yourself..." the police chief replied expressionlessly.

"I have a lawyer and I want to call him." Craig Stevens, an old bastard, finally realized something was wrong and immediately asked to call a lawyer, then kept silent.

Ronald smiled slightly, didn't say much, and rushed to CAA with everyone. There was another ambush.

"Nothing was discovered, no wiretaps, no tape recorders, no bugs in the office."

The team that came to CAA thoroughly inspected multiple agents' offices and their phone lines. Nothing was found.

"Is it really not there, or are we making too much noise and being discovered?" There is a fountain outside the CAA Building designed by I.M. Pei, where Ronald talks to Niceta and others.

"The two situations you mentioned are possible. In addition, it is also possible that two groups of people did it." Daniel communicated with the team here for a long time and came over to report the technical findings to Ronald.

"It seems that there are no traces on the lines in Mr. Niceta's and Richard's offices. This shows that they may not be using the same method as the hotel eavesdropping. There is no doubt about the leak, and we have to continue to look for it. What went wrong.”

"What do you think the problem will be?" Niceta was very annoyed that his office was bugged. He didn't find out the reason and didn't want to appear in the new office until he took action.

"The switches in the new office building are unified in one place. The lines were arranged before the decoration. If you want to know the reason, you have to go there to investigate. Another possibility is your telephone recording system. I noticed You are still using a simple six-digit password, which can be easily cracked or manipulated at the switch end."

"You mean, our phone messages were eavesdropped?" Paula Wagner's face changed.

"We don't rule out this possibility. In fact, we think it's the most likely. Your answering machine is very busy..."

"Shxt!" Even Richard's face changed. Brokers are usually very busy at work. They don't have several secretaries like Ovitz. Many times, they can't answer the phone, so they rely on answering machines to record customers' messages.

Every day, no matter where they are, they have to call the office regularly and enter the password to listen to which customer has left a message during this period. If their password is cracked, they can listen to all customers' messages seamlessly.

Moreover, the six-digit password is not that complicated. For example, Niceta and Paula Wagner used their son's birthday as the password.

"In fact, this brand of answering system can retrieve your phone access records from the background. As long as you get all the calls from the past three days, especially the phone numbers for listening to messages, you can roughly guess who did it." Daniel made suggestions from a technical perspective.

"I will ask for the answering machine log, and you all have to cooperate with me." Nicita knew that this was the moment of truth, and he said to his wife and Richard.

"Of course," Richard and the others said, if this kind of thing is true, then it will be a big problem. No matter who has their recordings, it will be easy to steal their customers.

That night, the request jointly put forward by Nicita and others was passed by Ovitz at the meeting of directors and partners. All the brokers were shocked to hear the news. They had no objection at all and agreed to a thorough investigation.

The next morning, the phone log records of each partner were sent to their respective offices. The technical experts of Daniel's team helped Nicita and others analyze the logs, and the conclusion was... no suspicious calls came in.

"However, there is something wrong with the phone records here. You see, this is a record of repeated calls within a short minute. Generally, this is a busy tone when the first call is made, and then it is automatically redialed by calling back after your first call is finished.

But there is no call record for another call in the log of the first call. Do you remember whether you pressed the call because it was busy?"

Daniel asked Niceta to recall that this log was very similar to the record of the first call that was busy, which was deleted, so it contradicted the redial behavior of the subsequent calls.

"I remember that this was a call from one of my clients, and I just returned to the office to answer it." Niceta pointed to the redialed number and said, "There was no one in the office before I came back." ”

After confirming that someone was deliberately concealing the information, Niceta and the others had nothing to say. They applied to separate their answering system from the company's system and then bought an independent answering machine to use.

Daniel helped them with the security review and would review it every month. This behavior was soon noticed by those who were interested, including another founder, Ron Meyer, who also began to handle the phone system on his own.

"The suspect has been caught. He is a bad policeman. I have asked Attorney Kanter to keep an eye on him. Your task is to help me keep an eye on him and put my interests first. The same goes for the DA's office in Los Angeles County. I don't want them to bypass my interests and reach any private exchanges. I want to dig out the person behind Craig Stevens."

The next day, Attorney Lindsay Doll had arrived, and Ronald immediately gave him a brief account of the case.

"Do you want to consider letting the FBI get involved?" Lindsay looked at the file quickly and asked.

"Is it okay? "Ronald didn't expect this question, because the FBI can only handle interstate crimes.

"Okay, you said here that the eavesdropping equipment is an old model retired by the CIA. This kind of sensitive equipment must be involved in illegal interstate transactions. I will help you apply to Director Claire of the FBI New York Office for filming at the FBI headquarters. She will help you."

"Okay, you help me get this done." Ronald heard that he could do it in two ways, and he didn't care what the LAPD would complain about. Anyway, it would be better to find a department that is eager to make a contribution to keep an eye on you.

"Michael, how about the newspaper exposure plan you prepared for me?" Ronald asked Michael Gray, a public relations expert who dropped all his business and rushed to the newspaper public relations that Ronald wanted to cooperate with.

"I suggest not to expose your name. This kind of thing is not a good thing for you. It is easy for some people to be involved in whether there is any gossip about the recording, especially the exposure of Rob Lowe's videotape. The first reaction of the public to the exposure of the privacy of big people is gossip. "

"Well, it's okay. "

"Then we can use the angle of an anonymous Hollywood celebrity being wiretapped to try to steal his roles and projects, do some publicity, Hollywood Reporter and Variety Show coverage here in Hollywood, as long as you can arouse the disgust of the stars, you are on the side of the majority. "Michael Gray believes that in this kind of thing, it is most important to maintain Ronald's image as a victim.