Remember how five years ago federal agents made a big production of arresting the “Private Eye to the Stars,” Anthony Pellicano, and 11 of his associates for an assortment of racketeering charges? Remember how on Feb. 6, 2006, Pellicano and six of his associates were charged in a 110-count indictment alleging racketeering, wiretapping and privacy breaches?

Remember how on March 3 last year Pellicano and three of his associates were tried, found guilty and sent to prison for those charges?

Well, today Pellicano and one “associate” is in prison: Rayford Earl Turner, a retired telephone company service technician from Van Nuys and the only African-American caught up in the prosecution of Pellicano’s lily-White gang, is the only defendant serving time in prison with Pellicano, the organization’s boss. Why? Because the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Saunders, seems to hate Black people with money. At least that is the perception of both Black and white observers of this case.

Today (May 20) is Turner’s 54th birthday and he is observing it in the Taft Correctional Institution for a crime his family and friends insist he knows nothing about, while prosecutor Saunders is convinced within his bones that Turner knows everything about Pellicano’s crimes but refuses, out of “Negro” stubbornness, to spill his guts to the cops. So, Turner’s supporters regard the lone Black man in this massive case as being the scapegoat and the target of judicial abuse and excessive punishment in an attempt to “break” him and force him to tell something he does not know.

Turner’s older brother, Alex Turner, and the inmate’s oldest and dearest friend and business partner, Vince Santoro, have stood with Turner (or “Ray,” as they call him) through his troubles with the criminal justice system, rallied his lifelong supporters to his cause and aided him in every way they could, including contacting me.

According to Alex and Vince, Turner was never part of Pellicano’s operation  and was simply a retired telephone man hired on occasion to go to Pellicano’s clients’ homes and check them for listening devices. They say he never installed any wiretaps or anything else for Pellicano and was unaware that he even did such things.

Turner, who was born and raised in San Diego, took a job with Pacific Telephone (now AT&T) right after he graduated from high school. While there, he met Santoro and the two men have remained best friends for more than 30 years. They participated in each other’s weddings.

While working for the telephone company, Turner and Santoro began buying deteriorated houses for cheap and refurbishing them and renting and/or selling them. They began making money in excess of their telephone company salaries. Turner and Santoro remained with the telephone company until they retired together in December 2001 and they rolled over their IRAs and made even more money.

“Yes, we made money. Ray and I worked hard for it,” Santoro said. “Ray did not meet Pellicano until after we retired and he already had money, but the prosecutor believes that since he’s Black, he could not possibly have money and property unless he had acquired it from an unlawful association with Pellicano,” Santoro said. “Saunders absolutely hates Ray,” he added.

Turner spent the first three years after his retirement working on his house-buying business and then he met Pellicano and accepted a part-time job checking for listening devices for Pellicano’s clients. Years later, the cops raided Pellicano’s Beverly Hills office and found a ledger in his desk that showed that the boss had paid Turner $37,000 for his occasional work over a period of six or seven years. And they said: “Aha! A major player!” But that ledger also showed Pellicano paid former LAPD Sgt. Mark Arneson more than $200,000 over the same period for whatever it was he was doing for Pellicano.

Alex Turner said Saunders was visibly livid every time he’d ask Turner for details as to Pellicano’s wiretapping operation and he would respond that he did not know. “Saunders believed that because Ray was a telephone company technician, he was the wiretapper, but even Pellicano said in court that only he, himself, was responsible for the wiretaps, and Ray had nothing to do with it, but they ignored that,” Alex Turner said.

Even though Saunders was convinced Turner was a major figure in the case — working side-by-side with Pellicano — he offered him a deal for leniency if he would tell the feds how the wiretaps worked (which is something they still don’t know), but Turner could not accept the deal because he did not know.

So, Turner had the book thrown at him in ways you would not believe.

“Saunders could not stand the fact that Ray was Black and had money, so he went after everything he had,” Alex Turner said. “He was out to break him. He coupled him directly to Pellicano. Of all the people convicted, he argued for the harshest sentence — 12 years for Ray — and the judge gave him 10 years, the same as for that cop, Arneson, but Pellicano got 15 years.

“Then, because he still had assets [the bad guys had turned their assets over to other people but Turner, knowing he had done nothing wrong, naively kept his] they fined him about $50,000 which I helped him pay 10 days before he went to prison. Then the judge ordered Ray to pay $2 million for illegal wiretapping and put a lien on his property. And even while they were doing all of that to him, Saunders kept mumbling in his ear, ‘Tell me about the wiretaps’” Turner said. 

The case has been appealed and all the guys are out on bail pending the appeal, except Turner, and, of course, Pellicano, who they say will never get out. Bail for Turner has been denied because Saunders has convinced that court that Turner is “a danger to society,” (Unless, of course, he tells him about the wiretaps.)

Not only that, all those convicted in this case have been assigned a federal  public defender to handle their appeals — except Turner. The other convicts have no assets, you see, and therefore cannot afford attorneys, but Saunders made it clear to the court that Turner has money and, therefore, must hire his own. He did. He hired Attorney Karen Landau of San Francisco to handle his appeal. Stay tuned.