Jury Deliberations Restart in Christensen/Pellicano Trial

By Eriq Gardner

The fate of Terry Christensen is now in the hands of a jury in the second conspiracy and wiretapping case based on the shenanigans of PI Anthony Pellicano. But deliberations made a strange turn yesterday after a juror was accused of lying to the judge.

The juror reportedly told others in the jury room, "What's the big deal? Nobody was killed," then denied to the judge that he had made the remark, U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer told lawyers in the case yesterday. The juror was replaced by an alternate.

Juror deliberations began after both sides presented closing arguments.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel A. Saunders and defense attorney Patty Glaser traded turns playing the recorded tapes between disgraced PI Pellicano and Christensen, the managing partner of Century City's Christensen Glaser Fink Jacobs Weil & Shapiro. Saunders attempted to sketch a conspiracy without regard for the law; Glaser tried to show that Christensen was a "victim of his illegal recording, not a perpetrator," referring to Pellicano.