Spector Threatened Women, Used Obscenities, Witness Testifies
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LOS ANGELES — The murder trial of Phil Spector took a turn back to the prosecution yesterday as a former security guard and one-time New York police officer testified that the music producer threatened women and used obscenities to describe how they deserved to die.
After a hearing with the jury out of the room, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler reversed himself yesterday and ruled that Vincent Tannazzo could testify.
The judge had previously disallowed the obscenity-laced testimony but changed his mind and ruled that Mr. Tannazzo’s comments were important enough to overcome any prejudice that the jury would feel from the comments about women. The testimony illustrated Mr. Spector’s anger about women, the prosecution said.
Mr. Spector, 67, is charged with shooting Lana Clarkson, 40, in the mouth in the early hours of February 3, 2003. The defense contends that Clarkson accidentally killed herself in Mr. Spector’s Alhambra mansion.
Mr. Tannazzo, now retired, described how he was working security for comedian Joan Rivers, who threw a Christmas party in the mid-1990s. He said Mr. Spector made obscene comments about women.
“They all deserve a bullet in their head,” Mr. Tannazzo said Mr. Spector told him.
“I ought to put a bullet in her head right now,” Mr. Tannazzo testified that he heard Mr. Spector say at a New York hotel at another Rivers party about seven years before Clarkson’s death.
Mr. Tannazzo said he frisked Mr. Spector after an altercation there between the producer and a woman and said he found a handgun in Mr. Spector’s belt.
Four women have testified that they had encounters with a drunken Mr. Spector who threatened them with guns.
The prosecution argues that Mr. Spector had a pattern of menacing women, especially when drunk. The murder of Clarkson was an extreme example of this pattern, the prosecution says.
The prosecution also hopes that the “bullet in their head” comment will remind the jury of how Clarkson died — from a bullet through the mouth. The Spector trial resumed yesterday after a 10-day holiday break.
Mr. Spector arrived in court sporting a new hairdo. Gone was the blond page-boy style, replaced by a brown layered shag-type wig. This follows a recent sartorial upgrade to include ties and conservative suits.
