John McTiernan, director of the great Predator, the awesome Die Hard, the wonderful Hunt For Red October, the underrated Last Action Hero, and, uh… some other stuff, is headed to prison for his role in a Hollywood wiretapping scandal. You ask me, it’s the directors of Die Hard 2 and 4 who should be in prison. (*knocks invisible baseball over imaginary fence*)
John McTiernon, 62, received a one-year sentence and fine of $100,000 in 2010 for making false statements to the FBI during its investigation into private investigator Anthony Pellicano.
He never should’ve tried to defend Rollerball.
On Monday the Supreme Court refused his request to reverse his guilty plea and a judge is expected to order him to prison.
Private eye Pellicano, 68, is currently serving 15 years in a federal prison in Texas for charges including bugging the phones of the rich and famous on behalf of other Hollywood celebrities and major business players.
He was arrested in 2002 after the FBI found hundreds of hours of illegally recorded telephone conversations, along with hand grenades and enough plastic explosives to bring down a passenger jet. He was later found guilty of racketeering and more than six dozen other counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud and wiretapping and is expected to be released in 2019.
McTiernan is alleged to have hired Pellicano to investigate producer Chuck Roven. On appeal the film director had sought to suppress a recording in which McTiernon and Pellicano can be heard discussing the use of an illegal wiretap.
As his sentence stands currently McTiernan will spend 12 months in federal prison followed by three years under supervised release. [Independent]
Prison rape jokes are fun and all, but BALCO honcho Victor Conte, also known as the guy who (ALLEGEDLY) gave Barry Bonds steroids (and, minor trivia, was in a rock band with my uncle in the sixties), was on Joe Rogan’s podcast a while back talking about what federal prison is actually like for rich white people. Basically, there’s free food and rent, organized sporting events, female guards you can pay for sex, and all the drugs you could want.
Seriously:
Sports complex “The first morning, when I woke up it was a kind of university-campus like setting. I walked out and in the middle of the courtyard was a huge sign that said ‘Sports Complex.’ Basketball, football, baseball, soccer, bocce ball, volleyball, handball. And I looked around and there were about 500 guys there. And they all had on equipment; there was a soccer game and a baseball game going on.”
Rec center “I looked over I saw the rec center. And I walked over to that and looked in and there were six pool tables, six foosball tables, six ping-pong tables.”
Music department “Then I went through this door and there was this huge music department. Three different musical groups were practicing. I said, ‘Do they have concerts here?’
‘Oh yeah! We have a routine on Friday nights and the bands play concerts outside.'”
Drugs This is my first 10 minutes — I was on the compound I started walking with some guys around the walking track and I went [sniff] — ‘Are they smoking weed around here?’ And they said, ‘Yeah! You want some weed?’
I said, ‘Listen, I don’t want anything to do that with this kind of stuff. I don’t want to get in any more trouble that I’m already in.’ But yeah, anything that you wanted — alcohol — any and every type was $25 for 8 ounces. They had meth, they had steroids, they had cocaine.”
No fences “There’s no fences around the the place, about every 200 feet they have a sign on a stake that says ‘Out of Bounds.’ I got there on December 1 of 2005. That Christmas, about 25 guys just walked out on the freeway and they had their families pick them up and they left. So it’s kind of an honor system.”
Female prison guards as hookers “It didn’t take me long to figure out, they had several really nice-looking female correctional officers there. You know, hair done up, big chest. It was kind of stunning to me. And they said ‘Listen, you want some action?’ I’m telling you the straight scoop. My understanding is on average they were making about $30,000 a month.”
Some prisoners don’t want to leave “This young kid came in that same first day I was there and my cubie was a guy named Evil. And he said ‘Evil, I’m going to have to do something bad because I’m supposed to go home tomorrow.’ And I said ‘You’re supposed to go home and you want to stay here?’ He said, ‘Yeah if I go home I’ve got to start paying rent!'” [via BoingBoing]
I may start evading my taxes just for a vacation.