Prosecutor to call new witness in Spector’s murder retrial
A prosecutor preparing for Phil Spector’s retrial on murder charges said Monday that he intended to add to the witness list a sixth woman who says the famous producer threatened her with a gun.
In court papers, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson wrote that investigators located Norma Kemper after Spector’s trial ended in a hung jury in September.
Jackson wrote that Kemper, a former personal assistant for the music producer, would testify that Spector brandished a gun during a 1996 dinner at Dan Tana’s restaurant.
According to the prosecutor, it was Kemper’s first day on the job, and Spector, who was drunk, leaned over the table and tried to kiss her.
When Kemper rebuffed him, Spector opened his suit jacket, displaying a small handgun, the prosecutor wrote.
“You know I could kill you right now,” Kemper quoted Spector as telling her, according to court papers.
Christopher Plourd, one of Spector’s attorneys, said he had not seen the papers and could not comment.
Spector, 67, is accused of shooting actress Lana Clarkson, 40, to death in the foyer of his Alhambra mansion in 2003. He says Clarkson killed herself. The retrial is to begin in October.
The prosecution contends Spector has a pattern of pulling weapons on women who reject him when he is inebriated. At his trial, five women described incidents stretching back to the 1970s in which he menaced them with a gun.
According to the prosecutor, Kemper, who worked for Spector for four years, told authorities that when the producer mixed alcohol with his prescription psychiatric medication he became “mean.”
One witness, Dianne Ogden, died of an accidental overdose of prescription medication in December. In court papers filed Monday, the prosecutor asked to play a videotape of her testimony to jurors at the retrial.
Jackson also requested that Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler prohibit the defense team from delving into the cause or circumstances of Ogden’s death.
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