Former Spector lawyer testifies

A former attorney for Phil Spector avoided jail by testifying for the prosecution Thursday in the music producer’s murder trial.

Sara Caplan repeated for the jury her account of watching forensics expert Henry Lee pick up a fingernail-sized object during an inspection of Spector’s Alhambra home the night after actress Lana Clarkson’s shooting death there.

Based on Caplan’s earlier account, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler had ruled that Lee improperly removed evidence, and ordered Caplan to testify before the jury.

She had refused to take the witness stand against her former client, saying it would betray her duty to him and violate his attorney-client privilege.

But a day after her final appeal was rejected by the California Supreme Court, Caplan capitulated and took the stand. Her displeasure at serving as a prosecution witness testifying against Lee -- whom she had worked with on the O.J. Simpson defense -- was obvious.

When Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson asked her if the vial Lee used “was clear -- could you see through it?” she sarcastically replied, “I know what clear means; yes.”

During cross-examination by Spector attorney Linda Kenney-Baden, Caplan drew a picture of the object, appearing larger than the narrow sliver of Clarkson’s acrylic nail that was missing.

When Caplan finished, Fidler explained to the jurors, “The testimony you heard will be put into context at a later time.” Fidler had ruled that the jury could use Caplan’s testimony to evaluate Lee’s credibility when he takes the stand.

Fidler’s ruling against the celebrity forensics specialist was publicized worldwide and struck a blow to Spector’s defense, which considers Lee its star witness.

Defense attorneys told jurors they planned to call Lee to testify that bloodstains on Spector’s jacket show he was standing too far from Clarkson to have pulled the trigger when she was shot through the mouth Feb. 3, 2003.

Spector has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys say that Clarkson shot herself in an “accidental suicide.”

Lee, who has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, has said in interviews that he might no longer testify on Spector’s behalf.

Lee has not returned phone calls and e-mail messages from The Times, but he told the Associated Press this week that he would be out of the country for three weeks and was unsure if the defense needed his expertise.

The high court ruling against Caplan was the second adverse decision in a challenging week for the defense.

On Monday, Fidler allowed a former security guard to testify for the prosecution. Vincent Pannazzo, who kicked Spector out of two Christmas parties thrown by comedian Joan Rivers, said Spector twice told him that he wished to shoot women in the head.

Pannazzo was one in a series of witnesses the prosecution has presented to try to show that Clarkson’s shooting was part of a pattern of aggressive gunplay by Spector against women.

In response, Spector’s attorneys brought forth friends of Clarkson to support the defense argument that she was despondent and drank excessively, and therefore may have been disposed to shoot herself.

But one of those friends, Jennifer Hayes Riedl, undercut another defense witness. She said Punkin Laughlin, a defense witness who claims that Clarkson was her closest friend, “has no memory.”

On Thursday, Laughlin took the stand and began describing drinking with Clarkson.

Photographs of Clarkson at parties were projected during her testimony, often with drinks in hand. One showed the statuesque blond in a tight red cocktail dress, standing with her back arched in a seductive pose. In another, Clarkson suggestively dangles a fork in front of her face, its tines pressed on the lower lip of her open mouth.

In addition to raising questions about Clarkson, the defense sought to discredit Melissa Grosvenor, a woman who earlier testified that Spector threatened her with a gun.

Two of Grosvenor’s sisters testified that she once stole a plaque from a judge’s house during a party in their hometown of Augusta, Ga.

Under cross-examination, prosecutors asked one of the sisters, Angela Pileggi Silverstein, if Grosvenor’s drug use caused a rift with her. Pileggi Silverstein said the rift did not affect her testimony.

peter.hong@latimes.com