State Rejects Bid to Probe ‘Twilight’ Case

The state attorney general’s office will not conduct an independent investigation at this point of alleged prosecutorial misconduct by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office in the “Twilight Zone” manslaughter trial, a spokesman said Thursday.

Chief Deputy Atty. Gen. Nelson Kempsky said that such an investigation, requested by defense attorneys, would be premature--if necessary at all--because “the matter is still pending before the judge” in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The defense made its request after a highly unusual courtroom conflict last week between the current and former prosecutors. Both testified out of the jury’s presence and gave differing accounts concerning the truthfulness of a key prosecution witness, production secretary Donna Schuman.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino, the current prosecutor, told reporters Thursday that notes she found last week tend to corroborate part of Schuman’s testimony about an alleged statement by co-defendant George Folsey Jr. that he might be jailed if authorities learned that there were child actors and explosives on the set.

The notes, which D’Agostino said she found in a file drawer, were made by the former prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Gary P. Kesselman, during an interview with Schuman.

Kesselman testified last week that he could not recall Schuman ever making such a statement.

However, Folsey’s attorney, Harland Braun, said that the notes made by Kesselman contain no specific reference to jail and specifically read: “Get a little fined working past 6 p.m. having them on set with explosives.”

Braun also said the notes do not contain any reference to a second disputed statement in which film director John Landis allegedly said, “We’re all going to to to jail” for illegally hiring child actors.

The manslaughter trial of director John Landis, Folsey and three associates in the 1982 deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two children resumes Monday.