CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES

By Harriet Ryan

June 6, 2009 12 AM PT

Music producer Phil Spector was transferred Friday from a downtown L.A. jail to a state prison, corrections officials said.

A bus delivered Spector, 69, to North Kern State Prison in Delano, where authorities will evaluate him and determine the appropriate facility for him to serve a sentence of 19 years to life. A jury in April convicted Spector of murdering actress Lana Clarkson.

A prison spokeswoman said Spector will probably be sent to a maximum-security facility. Lt. Patrice Davis said several prisons have units for high-profile inmates.

“That is one of many factors” authorities will consider, she said.

Spector is appealing his conviction.

-- Harriet Ryan

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Harriet Ryan

Harriet Ryan is an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the paper in 2008, she has written about high-profile people, including Phil Spector, Michael Jackson and Tom Girardi, and institutions, including USC, the State Bar of California, the Catholic Church, the Kabbalah Centre and Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting with colleagues Matt Hamilton and Paul Pringle in 2019. She and Hamilton won the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability in 2023. She previously worked at Court TV and the Asbury Park Press. She is a graduate of Columbia University.

CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES

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