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May 4, 2007 Friday 2:46 AM PST

“Evidence Tampering” Controversy Continues in Spector Trial

BYLINE: CIARAN McEVOY

LENGTH: 722 words

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES

The investigation into whether the defense team tampered with evidence will continue today in the murder trial of rock music producer Phil Spector.

Spector, 67, is accused of killing 40-year-old Lana Clarkson in the foyer of his castle-like Alhambra mansion on Feb. 3, 2003. Spector’s defense team main-tains that Clarkson shot herself.

A lawyer and a private investigator testified yesterday they saw famed foren-sics expert and possible defense witness Henry Lee manipulate evidence at the scene of the shooting.

Testifying outside the presence of the jury, Sara Caplan — a Beverly Hills-based criminal defense lawyer — said that the day after the shooting, she saw Lee pick up a flat white object the size of her fingernail and put it in a vial in the foyer of Spector’s “Pyrenees Castle.”

Lee is a famous Connecticut-based forensics expert most notable for his tes-timony in the O.J. Simpson murder trial. He could also be called as a defense witness in Spector’s ongoing trial.

Later, Stan White, a 62-year-old private investigator who was hired by Spec-tor’s then-lawyer Robert Shapiro to look over the crime scene, testified that he saw Lee bend down, scoop something up and say, “I think I’ve found some tissue.”

White, who said he was cutting off a piece of bloody carpet in the foyer at the time, walked over to Lee and shined a flashlight on the object Lee was hold-ing, he told the court.

“I said it looked like a piece of fingernail,” White said. ” 1/8Lee 3/8 told me I was crazy. I told him he needed glasses.”
White also testified the alleged fingernail fragment had a soft, lead trans-fer consistent with a gunshot.

“It looked like a defensive-wound fingernail,” he testified.

White testified that Lee showed the object to other people in the foyer at the time.

Caplan testified, however, that White was never inside Spector’s home, saying White was asked to secure the outside perimeter of Spector’s estate.

Prosecutors have long accused Spector’s lawyers of tampering with evidence, particularly a piece of a broken fingernail belonging to Clarkson. If such evi-dence exists, it may prove there was a struggle between Clarkson and Spector just before her death, prosecutors contend.

Lee is currently in China and may not be available to testify for up to two weeks, according to defense attorneys.

Caplan testified that she pointed out a few areas of interest in the foyer to Lee, who is expected to testify in the murder trial. Lee then picked up a flat white object and said it “might be interesting,” Caplan told the court.

Lee then put the object in a vial, she said.

Gregory Diamond, a paralegal who once worked for Shapiro, testified yesterday that he was in the foyer the night of Feb. 4, 2003, after homicide detectives left the scene. He testified he saw Caplan pick up a what appeared to be a tooth fragment and hand it to Dr. Michael Baden, another forensics expert. Baden has denied knowing Diamond.

On the stand today, Caplan denied picking up anything at Spector’s mansion.

“I would never touch an object at an alleged crime scene, ever,” she said.

Bill Pavelic also known as William Bill Pavelic and Zvonko Pavelic, a private investigator working for Shapiro, confirmed Diamond was at Spector’s mansion that night. He also earned a stern admonishment from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler for calling White “a snitch.”

Diamond contacted prosecutors two weeks ago, and he was interviewed by Los Angeles police officers. He testified that Shapiro asked him to observe the de-fense team’s investigation of where Clarkson died.

That investigation occurred immediately after police finished their initial crime scene investigation at Spector’s home, Diamond testified. He said he watched the investigation for about three hours.

Under questioning from defense attorney Christopher Plourd, Diamond admitted he was a writer who pitched a law-type show to CBS in 2004. Diamond also admit-ted to contacting a Los Angeles Times reporter about the Spector case before he ever called prosecutors. He also admitted to contacting the New York Times, Court TV reporter Beth Karas and the legal Web site, thesmokinggun.com.

The evidentiary hearing is scheduled to resume tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.

If Fidler rules that defense attorneys deliberately withheld evidence from prosecutors, he may impose sanctions.
Spector faces 15 years to life in prison if found guilty of killing Clarkson.

LOAD-DATE: May 5, 2007

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire