Posted on 05/24/2005 4:56:01 PM PDT by aculeus
LOS ANGELES: Four women who claim legendary pop music producer Phil Spector pointed guns at them will be allowed to testify at his murder trial, a judge has ruled.
Spector, 64, who produced tracks for musical giants including the Beatles and Elvis Presley, is charged with shooting B-movie actor Lana Clarkson dead at his hilltop mansion in Los Angeles in February 2003. The inventor of the 1960s "wall of sound" recording technique has pleaded not guilty to the charge and is due to go on trial in September. He claims Clarkson committed suicide.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Larry Paul Fidler said yesterday the prosecutors could call the four women to testify that Spector allegedly pointed guns at them in separate incidents between 1988 and 1995.
Prosecutor Doug Sortino told the judge the incidents involving the women were "remarkably similar to what we have in this case".
Mr Sortino said the pattern of gun-related violence demonstrated an "ongoing course of conduct that happens again and again and again".
Photographer Stephanie Jennings told grand jurors the musical guru confronted her in a hotel room after a Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in January 1995, then returned with a gun and sat in a chair in front of her door. She says he pointed the weapon at her.
Another woman, Dorothy Melvin, said she became romantically involved with Spector after meeting him in 1989 or 1990 and that she woke up one night to find him pointing a handgun at her new car.
She said he then pointed the weapon at her, told her to go back inside the house, slapped her with the back of his hand and accused her of "snooping" and "stealing things". Spector searched her handbag and told her to leave without it. "I heard him running down the drive and then I heard the pump of a shotgun," she said.
A third woman is expected to testify that Spector chased her with what she described as an Uzi-type assault rifle when she told him she was leaving his house after a dinner party.
While allowing the women's testimony, the judge said he would not allow prosecutors to tell the jury about Spector's two gun-related convictions in 1972 and 1975, or several other alleged incidents of gun-related violence.
Outside the courthouse, the producer vehemently denied the women's claims.
Well, it was the only way to get the Ronettes to sing like that.
Hey... Yahoo has a good picture of Phil....
If it had been Snarlin Arlen, you wouldn't see the knife, you'd just feel it in your back.
Besides he would have only needed one bullet.
Magic.
Did you see today's pic of Spector. The Wall of Sound guy is now the Ball of Hair guy.
Spector and Specter. What a pair of homophones!
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