The six-year-old Hollywood wiretapping case went to the jury Thursday after a federal prosecutor urged the panel members to look past the celebrities and entertainment moguls involved, the New york Times reports.

In eight weeks of testimony, prosecutors assailed Anthony Pellicano, the former private eye, as the mastermind of an efficient network of illicit information-gatherers who helped his clients gain the edge in civil disputes and beat the rap in criminal cases,, charging them a minimum of $25,000. Mr. Pellicano mounted little defense except to say he acted alone.

In his final remarks to the jury, the prosecutor Daniel A. Saunders assailed defense lawyers for asking a government witness about her medications and seminude photos. He said the tactic “directly paralleled Mr. Pellicano’s approach to the justice system: get the dirt, sling the mud, dirty them up, win any way you can.”

Read the full New York Times story

.(registration required)