Wife Sues Over Alleged Wiretapping -- She Says Private Calls Were Taped

The estranged wife of a Seattle businessman under criminal investigation for allegedly operating a lucrative dial-a-porn network has sued him, claiming he wiretapped a telephone in the residence they once shared.

Rebecca Sievers complains in her suit that, as a result of the wiretap, she continues to feel "sick to her stomach" whenever she makes a phone call from home.

The allegations in the federal lawsuit she filed yesterday against Joel Eisenberg were first disclosed in a criminal search-warrant affidavit filed in February 1991.

No criminal charges have been filed but Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry McCarthy said the investigation is still pending.

Eisenberg, the former owner of Seattle-based Aeroamerica, an airline, and Air Club International, a tour operation, has a history of business ventures that ran into financial difficulties.

He was the target of a state attorney general's lawsuit involving consumer fraud involving Aeroamerica flights, and ultimately paid about $140,000 in fines as a result of state actions.

The federal criminal investigation centers on a Seattle-based company offering sexually explicit conversation to callers dialing numbers with a 976 or 900 prefix.

The company allegedly operated by Eisenberg failed to report more than $126 million in taxable income over a four-year period ending in 1989, according to IRS investigators.

McCarthy said potential charges include tax fraud, mail fraud

and wire fraud, as well as illegal wiretap interception.

The latter would relate to the alleged events outlined in the civil suit filed yesterday.

In the spring of 1990, Sievers told Eisenberg she wanted a divorce, according to the new suit.

Later, her suit said, without her knowledge or consent, he installed a wiretap in their Seattle residence to intercept her phone calls.

About May 1, 1990, Sievers allegedly discovered audio tapes marked with dates and names of her friends and attorneys. She took the tapes to her divorce lawyer, who had a special machine constructed to decode the tapes, which were in a special high-speed format.

The tapes turned out to be confidential telephone conversations between Sievers and her lawyers, as well as other private conversations between Sievers and her friends and family, according to the lawsuit.

Eisenberg moved out of the house May 9. But the following month, in response to Sievers' requests, the phone company discovered wires indicating the phone was tapped, the suit asserts.

She claims that, as a result of Eisenberg's actions, she continues to suffer "severe emotional distress that has caused her symptoms of stress, including but not limited to anxiety, sleeplessness, nausea, headaches and increased risk of developing a serious illness . . .

"Defendant's actions have deprived her of a sense of security in her own home. He has provoked plaintiff's intense feelings of isolation from being unable to communicate by phone from her home."

The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages, attorneys' fees and costs.

Seattle defense attorney Jim Frush, a former federal prosecutor who represents Eisenberg, yesterday said there's some question whether the law invoked by Sievers applies to wiretapping cases involving family situations such as the Eisenberg-Sievers relationship.

He also accused by Sievers of creating "protracted litigation" despite her declarations that she wants to finish off the divorce proceedings, which have been pending for more than two years.

Frush said he knows of no official action regarding the criminal investigation since the search warrant was served more than a year ago.

"In my experience, more often than not, these investigations die on the vine because the government concludes they don't have a sufficient basis to go forward," Frush said.