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The LAT drags Chris Rock into the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, reporting that the comedian hired Hollywood's favorite eavesdropper and illegal background checker to dig up some fun facts on Hungarian model/Perfect 10 naked person Monika Zsibrita, who made a paternity claim against Rock back in '99. Rock's publicist admits the hire, but not, er, the illegal stuff:

[Publicist Matt] Labov said that Pellicano, at the time he was retained, had an "excellent reputation" as an investigator and that no one associated with Rock had any idea the private investigator would illegally access police files, as federal authorities have alleged.

"No one from our camp would have ever knowingly entered into an agreement with Pellicano to do anything illegal," Labov said. "Let me put it like this: When you hire somebody to fix your TV, you don't necessarily think he's going to hook you up for free cable."

He's got a good point—after you meet in that dark corner of the parking garage to hand over the brown paper bag full of unmarked bills in small denominations, you expect the private dick to put on his dark glasses and trenchcoat, scale a tree with a pair of comically oversized binoculars, and show up two days later with a manila envelope marked "incriminating evidence—for your eyes only." You have no reason to think he's going to pay off some cops to run illegal background checks or tap their phones.