Prosecutor Says Killer Trying to Get Back at Jurors : Courts: A judge orders a search of the Tarzana man’s cell. A deputy district attorney says an investigator hired by the prisoner has phoned panel members.

A Tarzana man convicted of murdering his wife and of later soliciting a fellow inmate in jail to kill his daughter is now attempting to reach the jurors who deliberated his case to harass or harm them, a prosecutor said Thursday.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge David M. Schacter ordered a search of Robert Peernock’s jail cell after Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig R. Richman, who prosecuted the case, told the judge that a private investigator hired by Peernock has been calling jurors.

In ordering the search to determine if Peernock has the phone numbers and addresses of jurors, Schacter said that if jurors cannot sit in trials without fear of retribution, then “our whole system collapses.”

The search was scheduled to take place Thursday night.

Richman said the investigator, Lawrence Sanchez, has called at least four of the 12 jurors, including three who have unlisted phone numbers. Richman said Sanchez would not tell him how he had obtained the unlisted numbers, and there are no records indicating that Sanchez tried to obtain the numbers through the courts.

Sanchez was not in court Thursday as Richman said the investigator had promised, so a subpoena will be issued for Sanchez to appear Wednesday to say how he obtained the unlisted phone numbers.

If Sanchez obtained the numbers illegally, he is subject to civil sanctions for violating the jurors’ right to privacy and could also be held in contempt of court, Richman said.

Sanchez has not threatened jurors, instead he has asked them for information about their deliberations to prepare for a possible new trial, Richman said. But the prosecutor said he believes that Peernock, 54, wants to harass or harm the jurors who decided his fate.

“Mr. Peernock has shown to be a dangerous person whether in custody or in the street,” Richman said. “I think there is the potential that he would consider killing them.”

The allegations by Richman came on the day that Peernock was scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Howard J. Schwab. Peernock was convicted last month of murdering his wife and attempting to kill his then 18-year-old daughter by staging an elaborate car crash.

However, Schwab postponed sentencing--which will be mandatory life in prison--until Nov. 18 because an Orange County judge has yet to rule on a motion filed by Peernock arguing that Schwab should be removed from the case because he is prejudiced.

Peernock accused Schwab of conspiring with others--including Peernock’s daughter, his deceased wife’s lawyer, police investigators and prosecutors--to convict him so that they can gain access to his finances.

Schwab early in the trial refused to remove himself from the case and continued the trial. However, he cannot sentence Peernock until the Orange County judge rules on the motion.

Peernock and his wife, Claire, 45, were within weeks of divorcing when she and their daughter were found in a crashed car on July 22, 1987, according to court records. Police said the car had been doused with gasoline and rigged to explode when it crashed into a telephone pole in a desolate industrial area of Sun Valley.

The prosecution contends that Peernock killed his wife and attempted to kill his daughter, Natasha Peernock Sims, to gain control of community property and life insurance benefits totaling $1.5 million.

Peernock would have realized less than $300,000 in the divorce, according to Richman.

The same jury that convicted Peernock of murdering his wife also convicted him of trying to hire a fellow inmate in County Jail to kill his daughter and her attorney.

Peernock, a former pyrotechnical engineer for a movie studio, interrupted his murder trial several times to proclaim his innocence. Because of the outbursts, Schwab ordered Peernock removed from the court for most of the four weeks of trial.