Private detective to the stars Anthony Pellicano is facing a public trial for wiretapping, and the 'who's who' of clients he worked for are now scrambling to distance themselves from the scandal.

Next Tuesday, Pellicano, who billed up to $100,000 per client, will face federal charges on over 100 counts of wiretapping, bribery, racketeering and conspiracy in LA. Even before the trial begins, the roll call of celebrities mentioned in connection with him is impressive. Steven Seagal, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Warren Beatty, Michael Jackson, John Travolta and various other directors, producers and studio heads have all been drawn into the web.

Pellicano, now 61, made a somewhat dubious name for himself in Hollywood circles. Known for his heavy-handed tactics, he was both feared and marvelled at. Though his modus operandi had been the topic of dinner party gossip for decades, his downfall came in 2002 when he was investigated in relation to death threats against former Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch.

Busch had been writing stories alleging ties between action hero actor Steven Seagal and the mafia.

Following one such publication, her car windshield was smashed and the car was left with a dead fish and a rose on top of it.

During a raid of the detective's offices, police found military-grade illegal explosives. For that, Pellicano served a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence. While he was in prison, the FBI was busy investigating something even more intriguing - the discovery of hundreds of hours of wiretapped audio conversations on Pellicano's computer, including hours of recordings of actor Nicole Kidman from the time of her separation from husband Tom Cruise in February 2001.

Pellicano had been allegedly hired by Cruise's divorce lawyer Dennis Wasser to assist in the proceedings of Cruise and Kidman's split. Kidman's attorney Bill Beslow had also retained the services of a private detective called Richie Di Sabatino.

Sabatino has admitted to putting an encryption device on Kidman's phone for the purpose of avoiding potential wiretapping, so it is presumed that the conversation Pellicano taped came from Cruise's phone.

Pellicano, according to police, was known for tapping his own clients.

Prosecutors claim he used information to help clients gain advantage in legal disputes and for blackmail and threats.

Kidman has already been questioned by the FBI over the recordings.

Aside from Cruise and Kidman, Pellicano has also been accused of tapping actor Sylvester Stallone's phone and gaining private police records of comedians Kevin Nealon and Gary Shandling. Others being linked with the sleuth include Universal Studios president Ron Meyer, Paramount Pictures chairman Brad Grey, and Kirk Kerkorian the former MGM mogul.

So far, of the 14 individuals already charged, most are former police officers who allowed Pellicano access to confidential databases, and phone service employees who revealed private information to aid in the wiretapping.

The only big players accused of anything so far are the director John McTiernan and entertainment 'celebrity' lawyer Terry Christensen.

McTiernan, whose films include Die Hard, The Thomas Crown Affair, and The Hunt for Red October, was charged earlier this month with making false statements to authorities who claim he lied about having no previous knowledge of Pellicano's wiretapping. Christensen was issued with conspiracy and wiretapping charges by a federal grand jury in February.

Not surprisingly Pellicano's shady dealings are also forming the basis for several books.

One with a head start is investigative author John Connolly's much anticipated The Sin Eater. Connolly spent a dozen years probing Pellicano, claiming more than a decade ago that he was tapping phones on behalf of and against Hollywood's big wigs, stories Pellicano allegedly physically threatened him for. "This thing is so much bigger than even I thought, " Connolly recently gushed to the New York Post.

Most dramatic of all are the rumours that former US president Bill Clinton's administration hired Pellicano to dredge up unsavoury details on both Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky. Clinton has always denied the reports.