NEWS “without comment “
Storied S.F. private detective Jack Palladino on life support after attempted robbery in front of his home,
Jan. 30, 2021 9:08 a.m.
An attempted street robbery in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood has left storied San Francisco private detective Jack Palladino gravely injured and on life support., The 70-year-old investigator, who had clients from Hollywood stars to Black Panthers to whistle-blowers over the decades, had just stepped outside his Page Street home Thursday shortly before 5 p.m. when a car pulled up, a man jumped out and tried to steal his expensive camera, police and witnesses said., “As the suspect pulled on the camera, the victim fell to the pavement, ” SFPD spokesman Robert Rueca said. Police had few other details and said no suspects had been arrested., The robbery attempt led to Palladino, an avid photographer, falling and hitting his head on the pavement, causing a traumatic head injury, his step son Nick Chapman told The Chronicle. Chapman said his stepfather is “not expected to survive” after doctors performed surgery to try stopping the massive bleeding.
Palladino had one final case he was wrapping up, Chapman said, but he had pretty much joined his wife and fellow detective Sandra Sutherland in retirement.
The pair had conducted investigations out of their Victorian home for decades, and he had big-name clients including Don Johnson, Kevin Costner, Robin Williams, Huey Newton, Snoop Dogg, carmaker John DeLorean and a 14-year-old boy who won a multimillion-dollar civil settlement against Michael Jackson for alleged molestation., He also worked for former President Bill Clinton, who according to a top aide hired the pair in 1992 to help quell rumors of his extramarital affairs, and Harvey Weinstein, who used the investigators to squash sexual misconduct allegations.
A witness, Parisha Pak, said she was walking down Page Street when she heard a speeding car. Next she heard a loud thud and saw a man being dragged next to the car.
He and his wife started a private detective agency Palladino & Sutherland and he quickly found high-profile cases., He spent seven years investigating the 1978 mass suicide of more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple religious cult, interviewing surviving members and their families., In the 1980s, he helped with the defense of DeLorean, the inventor of the flashy sports car who had been charged with cocaine trafficking to fund his company. After more than 200 witness interviews, the jury acquitted the car maker., In the 1990s, he ran a counter-investigation to the tobacco industry’s campaign to smear whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigan. Palladino’s work protected Wigan’s credibility as an expert witness in a lawsuit that resulted in a $200 billion settlement, the first successful courtroom win against Big Tobacco. He would play himself in the subsequent film “The Insider” on the Wigan story.
Matthias Gafni
San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
Email: matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com
Full Article: https://www.sfchronicle.com/
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