Samuels Pressed for Details of Fast-Lane Living After Slaying : Trial: Cross-examination in double murder-solicitation case brings out stories of cocaine, limousines, a Cancun condo and more after she inherited $500,000.

As Mary Ellen Samuels told it, she was a shy person whose spending habits changed not a whit after her husband was murdered in 1988 and she inherited $500,000.

“I paid bills. I lived like I normally did,” Samuels told a jury as she testified in her own defense at her murder trial in Van Nuys Superior Court last week. “I bought a new car.”

But a different portrait of Samuels emerged Monday after she endured a prosecutor’s surgical cross-examination in her double murder-solicitation case that reads like a trashy novel.

For starters, the new car was a $75,000 Porsche.

Samuels, 45, denied that she hired a hit man to kill her estranged husband, then two other hit men to do in the executioner. She has testified that the prosecution witnesses--many of them once her closest friends--all lied when they linked her to the murders of her husband, motion picture camera operator Robert Samuels, 40, and the suspected killer, reputed cocaine dealer James Bernstein, 27.

Under Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Maurizi’s cross-examination, Samuels stuck to her story that $500,000 did not change her lifestyle, even if she did spend most of it in about nine months.

But as cross-examination wore on, Samuels’ description of living like she “normally did” seemed to fit the dictionary definition of life in the fast lane: cocaine, limousines, fur coats, the Porsche, night clubs, a country club birthday bash, a condo in Cancun, trips to Las Vegas and San Francisco, loans to friends.

Earlier, she testified that when her husband was alive, “there never seemed to be enough money.”

Maurizi’s questions made it clear she considered Samuels anything but a demure defendant.

“You testified you are very shy,” Maurizi stated, then moved in for the kill, asking Samuels about a photograph taken months after she was widowed. In the snapshot, she is wearing nothing but $20,000 in cold cash and a smile.

Samuels responded that she’d had a few drinks when the picture--her boyfriend’s idea--was snapped in a motel room in Cancun. Her testimony contradicted that of the boyfriend, Dean Groover, who earlier told the jury that the pinup pose was “both our idea” and that Samuels hadn’t been drinking.

The prosecutor pressed Samuels about the time she showed up at a boyfriend’s hotel room wearing only a fur coat and teddy, and “cheesecake” photographs that Samuels insisted were taken for a mother-daughter contest.

Samuels was short on specifics about the mother-daughter contest. Last week she testified that she wore a teddy for the photos. Monday, she objected to the description “cheesecake” and denied wearing the teddy.

The contradictions were large and small.

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Last week Samuels said she left her husband in October, 1986, then changed the date to November. On Monday, she said it was in October.

Maurizi dug into credit card records, insurance records, divorce papers, even telephone records in confronting Samuels. She asked the defendant why Bernstein, a reputed cocaine dealer, would keep her name and social security and bank account numbers in a notebook.

“I don’t know,” Samuels said.

But the chief topic was money. Maurizi, alleging that Samuels killed for financial gain, is seeking the death penalty.

Under the prosector’s questioning, Samuels conceded that she received about $500,000 in insurance proceeds and real estate following her husband’s death. Had they divorced, she said they’d agreed she’d receive about $30,000 and support payments of $1,200 a month.

Within a month after he died, Samuels had traveled twice to Las Vegas. On one trip she charged two coats, worth about $1,600.

“One of those was a full-length coat, the other was a jacket. If they were real fur, it would have been more than that for one,” Samuels explained.

She had outfits custom-made at a store called Trashy Lingerie, running up bills of $1,500, four for $1,100, one for $900 and another for $800.

“Do you still say your lifestyle didn’t change?” Maurizi persisted.

“Well, I got to do more things, naturally.”

But the most glaring contradiction came on a seemingly benign topic: Whether she had taught a pet parrot to say disparaging things about the investigating officer, now-retired Los Angeles Police Detective George Daley.

Samuels denied it, saying she’d tried to teach the bird to say, “Mary Ellen,” but it refused to learn.

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In a courtroom moment that borrowed from both Perry Mason and Monty Python, Maurizi confronted Samuels with a transcript of a conversation taped by David Navarro, one of the friends she allegedly tried to talk into killing Robert Samuels. Some time during the fall of 1989, Navarro wore a recording device that captured Samuels on the subject of the bird:

Navarro: Did you teach the bird to say that phrase yet?

Samuels: Which one?

Navarro: About Daley.

Samuels: Saying, “Daley sucks”? . . . No, I tried to, though. . . . I’m going to train the bird to say it. That would be a delight to see.”

Samuels said she didn’t remember the conversation, and that the words didn’t sound right.