2 Audio Experts in Holden Trial Give Contrasting Views of Tape

Two audio experts faced off Monday during the last day of testimony in the sexual harassment trial of Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, offering strikingly different views on the authenticity of a tape recording of a psychiatric interview of the plaintiff in the case.

Norman I. Perle of the National Audio and Video Forensic Laboratory told Superior Court Judge Raymond D. Mireles--who is hearing the case without a jury--that a portion of the tape had been tampered with, apparently to erase the comments of plaintiff Marlee M. Beyda.

But private investigator Anthony J. Pellicano countered that Beyda’s voice is missing from the recording because her machine was on voice-activation mode. Pellicano said Beyda either spoke too softly or sat too far from the machine for her voice to turn it on.

The dispute over the tape recordings arose when the psychiatrist, David Paster, testified last week that Beyda told him that Holden is circumcised, which he is not. That could be central to the case because Beyda’s charges focus on a series of after-hours visits to Holden’s Marina del Rey apartment in which she alleges that the 66-year-old lawmaker masturbated by rubbing against her body and tried to force her into oral sex and intercourse.

Beyda, 31, a former receptionist in Holden’s district office, was never asked on the stand about circumcision. She testified, however, that she saw Holden’s penis but could not recall it having any distinguishing marks.

Outside court, Beyda’s attorney, Dan Stormer, has said his client never discussed circumcision with Paster. He has not, however, offered any testimony to rebut Paster’s statements under oath that she told him Holden is circumcised.

Both Beyda and Paster tape-recorded their four-hour interview last month. Both recordings have substantial material missing--according to lawyers for both sides who have listened to the tapes--and neither contains any mentions of circumcision.

Perle, who was hired by the defense, conducted a computer analysis of Beyda’s tape and found about 64 gaps, typically after the psychiatrist had posed a question. He said his technical tests of the tape made him at least 80% certain that it was not the original, but an edited copy.

Describing the tape as “highly suspicious,” Perle said “there’s no way I know of that this type of inconsistency can occur on an original source recording. . . . This is an edited version of some event. This is not the event that occurred.”

Plaintiff’s witness Pellicano, however, came to the exact opposite conclusion, saying he was sure “it is an original recording.”

He agreed with Perle’s description of the tape--that it has about 5 1/2 minutes of Paster posing questions with gaps for the answers, followed by about 24 minutes of silence--but attributed the oddities to a problem with the voice activator.

“This is a classic example of a voice activation or sound activation on a tape recorder,” he testified.

During six days on the stand, Beyda often spoke almost inaudibly, and lawyers had to remind her several times to raise her voice. Paster testified that she also spoke quietly during their interview.

The highly technical tape talk capped five weeks of testimony by about 20 witnesses, including several psychiatric and psychological experts, an economics professor and several current or former employees of Holden’s office. But the bulk of the trial pitted Beyda and Holden against each other in a classic “he said, she said” dispute in which there were no other witnesses to the alleged events.

Lawyers are scheduled to present closing arguments today in the high-profile case. Mireles could decide the case immediately or take it under submission and deliver an opinion later.

Holden faces a second sexual harassment lawsuit by another former employee that is scheduled for trial in January in Orange County.