Two men are arrested for assaulting Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein's private detective Jack Palladino after he took photos of them on camera they tried to steal - as his family turns off life support
Two men have been arrested in connection to the attempted robbery and attack on prominent private detective Jack Palladino, as his family says his life support has been switched off and he's not expected to survive more than a few days.
On Sunday city officials announced Tyjone Flournoy, 23, and Lawrence Thomas, 24, had been arrested for the Thursday attack where they tried to pull an expensive camera from Palladino's neck after he left his home.
Palladino fell in the struggle and suffered a 'traumatic head injury' after his head hit the pavement. His stepson Nick Chapman said he's 'not expected to survive' after undergoing surgery to stop the bleeding.
The detective may have inadvertently helped detectives, after he snapped pictures of the suspects trying to steal the camera.
Palladino is famous for taking on a slew of celebrity and political cases. He was hired by Bill Clinton in 1992 to quell rumors of his extramarital affairs and by Harvey Weinstein in 2017 to stop his victims from speaking out.
Two men have been arrested in connection to the attempted robbery and attack on prominent private detective Jack Palladino outside his San Francisco home on Thursday. He suffered a 'traumatic head injury' and isn't expected to survive
Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton were among Palladino's most high-profile clients
In the January 28 attack Palladino, 76, had just left his San Francisco home to take photographs in his neighborhood when a car pulled up and attempted to pull his expensive camera from around his neck, according to passersby.
Thomas, of Pittsburgh, was booked into jail on Friday evening and Flournoy, of San Francisco, was taken into custody Saturday in Reno and booked into San Francisco jail on Sunday morning, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
They were arrested on attempted robbery, aggravated kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy, false imprisonment and elder abuse, and an enhancement for allegedly causing great bodily injury to Palladino.
Palladino remained unconscious but received news of the arrests from his wife and fellow private detective Sandra Sutherland on Saturday night.
'I said, "Guess what Jack, they got the bastards, and it was all your doing,"' Sutherland told the Chronicle on Sunday.
Sutherland said Palladino was taken off life support and was breathing on his own, but he's not expected to survive more than a few days.
Palladino pictured left in March 2009 with Richard Perrillo
In the attack, witness Parisha Pak told the Chronicle that she heard a thud and saw Palladino being dragged toward the car.
'He was in bad shape,' she said. 'He was bleeding from his head and nose.'
'He had just stepped out front,' added Chapman, who also worked as a detective in the family business. 'The front door wasn't even fully closed.'
Palladino set up his business with his wife in 1978. He is pictured here in 1975
'They gunned him down (with the car) and tried to get the camera, which they failed to do. Because Jack wouldn’t let go,' Sutherland said.
Palladino was wrapping up one final case before joining his wife in retirement.
Since the 1980s, the two conducted investigations out of their Victorian home in the city's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, on behalf of the famous and powerful as well as the underdogs.
Their clients included Bill Clinton, whose 1992 presidential campaign hired Palladino to quell rumors of his extramarital affairs, and Courtney Love, who hired Palladino to talk to journalists investigating whether she played a role in the 1994 death of her husband, rock star Kurt Cobain.
In the 1990s, he ran a counter-investigation to the tobacco industry's campaign to smear whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.
Palladino's career began even before he graduated from University of California, Berkeley's law school when the family of Patty Hearst hired him to assist in investigating her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Party.
Born into working class family in Boston in 1950, Palldino graduated from Cornell in 1967.
He met his wife Sutherland in 1972 as he investigated alleged prisoner abuses at a New York prison at the request of the Long Island district attorney.
Palladino first moved to the Bay Area in the 70s to attend UC Berkeley's law school, where he and his wife set up the detective business Palladino & Sutherland in 1978.
Palladino spent seven years he spent investigating to the 1978 mass suicide of more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple religious cult. Pictured, cult leader Jim Jones
Courtney Love, pictured above in 2019, hired Palladino in 1994 to talk to journalists investigating whether she played a role in her husband Kurt Cobain's death
After working with the Hearst family, the pair quickly found themselves more high-profile cases, leading to a career of private investigation that spanned across five decades.
Among Palladino's most famous cases was the seven years he spent investigating to the 1978 mass suicide of more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple religious cult, otherwise known as the Jonestown massacre.
He also aided in the acquittal of car designer John DeLorean, who invented the flashy sports car.
In the 1980s, DeLorean was on trial for cocaine trafficking charges, as part of a scheme which he was allegedly using to find his company.
Yet the jury acquitted him of the charges after 200 witness interviews from Palladino.
In the 90s, he worked in the defense of whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigan, who was fighting against Big Tobacco in a lawsuit accusing them of manipulations designed to increase smoker addiction.
Palladino was tasked with protecting Wigan's credibility as an expert witness in the lawsuit, to counter an investigation being run by the tobacco industry to bring him down.
The case resulted in a $200billion settlement and was the first successful courtroom win against the industry.
The case was later showcased in the 1999 movie The Insider in which Palladino played himself.
Also in the 90s, Palladino worked on the sensational murder case involving San Francisco porn king brothers Jim and Artie Mitchell.
And in 1994, he was hired by Courtney Love to talk to journalists investigating whether she played a role in her husband Kurt Cobain's death.
R .Kelly was also acquitted on charges of videotaping himself having sex with an underage teenage girl in 2002 after Palladino's testimony at trial in which he challenged the main prosecution witness.
Yet he is best known for being hired by Clinton in the early 90s to push back on claims that he was guilty of extra-marital affairs.
The Clinton presidential election committee had launched a damage control inquiry against what they claimed was a smear campaign being used to deny Clinton the Democratic nomination.
They paid Palladino tens of thousands of dollars to investigate two dozen women over several years.
One of his most recent high-profile clients was Weinstein, who had engaged an 'army of spies' to keep tabs on victims and journalists investigating the story to keep them quiet.
Ronan Farrow had previously identified himself as one of the journalists followed by Palladino's firm, alongside New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Towhey; and Weinstein accusers Rosanna Arquette and Annabella Sciorra.
According to a profile in the San Francisco Examiner, Palladino 'built a reputation for aggressive investigations, an in-your-face style and the ability to neutralize adverse witnesses and spin hostile media'.
His stepson said Palladino wore flashy suits but was a 'real human' at home
Palladino had a career as a private investigator over five decades
'I'm not a self-effacing individual,' Palladino said at the time.
'I am a driven, arrogant person who holds himself and everyone around him to incredibly high standards. I'm very difficult in private life. I don't live for anything but this.'
In a profile with People when they first set up their business, Palladino admitted, 'I get to people by being brash,' but claimed Sutherland 'finds the grace in them and somehow pulls things out'.
Chapman told the Examiner Friday that Palladino wore flashy suits and had cultivated the persona of a brash private detective but that at home he was a 'real human'.
Hells Angels Sonny Barger, pictured, was another of Palladino's clients
'He was a somewhat flamboyant character at times and could be very aggressive in defense of his clients,' Chapman said.
'The stuff I read mostly doesn't capture the man I grew up with and who I worked for.'
Chapman also told the Chronicle that he believed his stepfather knew when to draw the line when it came to his clients.
'We were not a firm interested in doing shady s*** for anybody,' he said.
'He was very passionate about justice, about democracy, about the First Amendment, about people being entitled to the best defense that they could get,' he added to the Examiner.
'And he was not blind to the limitations of our justice system.'
'He was incredibly good at his job,' claimed Chapman, who grew up surrounded by the business.
'He and my mom at one point were the premier private investigators.'
He added that the family's work and home life would sometimes overlap, and he remembers Hells Angels leader Sonny Barger, who also a client, driving him to school in a lemon-yellow limousine.
Chapman said that Palladino, who was already an avid photographer, was spending more time on the hobby as he wound down his cases.
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