Murder Case May Hinge on Series of Phone Calls

In the end, prosecutors say, it is the phone calls that prove Jeanie Adair clubbed her husband to death with a baseball bat nearly three years ago.

Adair, 39, says a home-invasion robber dressed as a gas company worker forced his way into the couple’s Sylmar condominium, bound, gagged, terrorized and beat her for hours while gathering valuables--then killed her husband, Robert, 40, when he came home for lunch.

But Adair made three phone calls during the time she claims she was bound and gagged, Deputy Dist. Atty. Marsh Goldstein told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday.

“Any one of the three of those phone calls prove that the defendant’s version is a lie. You can’t be tied up and still make phone calls,” Goldstein said. “Any one of those three proves that she murdered Robert Adair.”

Jurors are scheduled to begin deliberations in the case today after the defense rests its case. The trial began Sept. 28.

Richard Plotin, Adair’s lawyer, said outside court Wednesday the phone calls don’t prove a thing because none were made by the defendant. He alleges two calls had been fabricated by a secretary at the victim’s medical office. As for the third call, Plotin said, someone impersonated the defendant, most likely the wife of an Encino surgeon with whom the defendant was having an affair.

The key to the case, Plotin said, is that his client had her own blood, and not her husband’s, on her, while evidence shows the killer would have been covered in the victim’s blood.

“He [Goldstein] never addressed the exculpatory evidence that showed who the person is that killed Robert,” Plotin said.

Plotin contends an ex-convict whose weapons of choice were a baseball bat and a knife committed the crime Nov. 5, 1996, at the behest of Melinda “Mindy” Shapiro, whose former husband, Michael Shapiro, was having an affair with Jeanie Adair while both were married.

Throughout the trial, Plotin has tried to portray Mindy Shapiro as a violent woman, crazed with jealousy, who frequently lied about her identity to get information or records.

Shapiro, however, has remained somewhat of a mystery to the jury as Plotin has questioned others about the woman, but has not questioned Shapiro herself.

Plotin maintains his client is the victim of a vendetta by the victim’s family, and a blundering police investigation that has not allowed her to move past the day her husband was killed.

During testimony Wednesday morning, Plotin introduced a report by a psychologist who said Jeanie Adair suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and that inconsistencies in her statements to police about the events the day her husband was killed stem from a blow to the head.

But an expert hired by the prosecution testified that while such a blow could cause a person to forget some or all of what occurred, it would not cause the person to give inconsistent accounts.

In statements to police and friends, Goldstein said Adair has differed on where and how she was tied, the implement she used to free herself and where she and the killer were when her husband came home.

Her statements not only changed, but are contradicted by physical evidence, Goldstein told the jury. Two people have testified they took calls from Adair during the time she says she was bound.

Adair did not testify on her own behalf.

Most of all, Goldstein said, the scene smacks of a setup because the condominium was neither properly searched nor emptied of valuables.

“Which of these statements are true? All of them? Some of them? None of them,” Goldstein told the jury.

“A philosopher once said . . . that it’s a very nice thing to tell the truth,” he added. “Because if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said.”