Victoria Sellers Denies Cocaine Ring Charges

The 23-year-old daughter of the late actor Peter Sellers pleaded innocent today to charges that she was involved in a violent Hollywood-based cocaine ring, and lawyers asked for psychiatric tests to determine whether she is competent to stand trial.

Victoria Sellers, an actress and model featured nude in a 10-page photo layout in the April issue of Playboy magazine, was represented by former New Jersey Atty. Gen. Irwin Kimmelman and lawyer John Barry.

Sellers, whose mother is actress Britt Ekland, was allowed to remain free on $100,000 bail pending her trial May 13.

Before a packed courtroom, Assistant U.S. Atty. Judy Russell asked the court to allow the government to obtain psychiatric experts for Sellers, saying, “I understand there was a question of competence to stand trial of defendant Sellers.”

No Defense Objection

After Kimmelman said he had no objection, Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise granted the request.

Sellers was charged March 12 with involvement in a cocaine-dealing ring headed by her live-in manager, Reed Wallace.

Wallace, 30, also pleaded innocent today. He is being held without bail at Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.

Sellers appeared in court looking more like a college student than a high-fashion model. She wore her light-brown hair in a pony tail and was wearing a red leather jacket, blue jeans, white socks and brown pumps.

Began Last September

The investigation of the alleged cocaine ring was initiated in September, 1985, by New Jersey state police, and an undercover trooper allegedly bought three kilograms of cocaine from a subordinate of Wallace on Jan. 21 in a hotel in Hasbrouck Heights.

Sellers, Wallace and four other California residents are charged with conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine, using “violence and threats of violence to obtain payment for cocaine.”