DIE HARD - MCTIERNAN CLOSER TO CHANGING GUILTY PLEA

MCTIERNAN CLOSER TO CHANGING GUILTY PLEA

DIE HARD director JOHN MCTIERNAN is one step closer to changing his guilty plea over his involvement in a Hollywood wiretapping scandal, after winning a court hearing on Tuesday (21Oct08).
The filmmaker was fined $100,000 (GBP57,800) and sentenced to four months in jail last September (07) for lying to FBI agents investigating disgraced private detective Anthony Pellicano, who was charged with more than 100 counts of wiretapping and racketeering.
MCTiernan initially told the FBI he'd only hired Pellicano once, during his divorce. He later revealed that he'd employed the detective's services on another occasion to keep tabs on producer Charles Roven, after they worked together on 2002's Rollerball.
But he has since claimed he had inadequate legal representation when he made the plea, and on Tuesday (21Oct08), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California ruled a lower court must consider his motion to rescind his plea.
A similar motion was dismissed by a U.S. district court judge last year (07).
The case will now be put before a Los Angeles district court, where a judge will determine whether MCTiernan should be allowed to withdraw his plea.
And MCTiernan's new attorney, S. Todd Neal, is satisfied with the latest development.
He says, "In our view, this is a charge that never should have been filed."
Pellicano was convicted on federal charges of wiretapping a number of celebrities, including Steven Seagal, Tom Cruise and Chris Rock, in August (08). He faces up to 10 years behind bars, along with a $500,000 (GBP289,000) fine when he is sentenced on 17 November (08).