Pellicano makes closing remarks

Los Angeles -- Anthony Pellicano, the Los Angeles private investigator on trial for wiretapping and racketeering, said Wednesday in closing remarks he was just doing his job.

Pellicano, who is representing himself, and his four co-defendants are being tried in federal court on various charges including bribing police, wire fraud and wiretapping to get information on celebrities Pellicano investigated such as actors Sylvester Stallone, Keith Carradine and Garry Shandling, and developer Robert Maguire.

Referring to himself in the third person as he was ordered to, Pellicano said his client was just doing his job as a private eye by looking for information, the Los Angeles Times said.

"I respectfully submit to you that they have not found an enterprise -- or that there was a common purpose," he said of the prosecutors' claims that he headed a criminal enterprise. "There was an investigative agency run by a guy who'd been around a long time."

The Times said Pellicano took about 18 minutes to sum up the nine-week trial.

"I guess I could sit up here and discuss things that the government said and go over testimony, but Mr. Pellicano instructed me not to do that," Pellicano said. "And you know when Mr. Pellicano instructs you to do something, you do it."

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.