[Bill Pavelic]
Bill Pavelic Detective supervisor, Bill Pavelic investigative consultant, Bill Pavelic defense investigative consultant, Criminal Defence Investigative consultantSPECTOR EVIDENCE STOLEN BY O.J. TEAM?
2008-06-29
Daily News (New York)
May 3, 2007 Thursday
SPORTS FINAL EDITION
BYLINE: BY MICHELLE CARUSO DAILY NEWS WEST COAST BUREAU mcaruso@nydailynews.com
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 3
LENGTH: 336 words
LOS ANGELES - Tooth or nail . . . or a big red herring?
Phil Spector's murder trial was thrown into chaos yesterday when a former clerk for lawyer Robert Shapiro came forward and swore the rock mogul's first defense team found and may have concealed a key fragment of tooth or fingernail at the crime scene.
Spector, 67, hired Shapiro, an ex-member of the O.J. Simpson defense Dream Team, immediately after he was booked for Lana Clarkson's slaying on Feb. 3, 2003, but he later fired and sued the high-profile lawyer.
Ex-clerk Gregory Diamond kept mum until about two weeks ago regarding the alleged evidence tampering he claims he saw during a Shapiro-led defense team visit to Spector's mansion. Then he contacted authorities.
Diamond named Shapiro's associate, lawyer Sara Caplan, as the person who picked up something "white, whitish and quite small" on the floor "lodged between the carpet and the staircase."
He said Caplan gave the item to Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist working for Spector's team, who examined it and said it might be "a fragment of a tooth," Diamond testified.
Diamond testified the white item was "passed around" to other defense team members at Spector's house, including another ex-Simpson minion, private investigator Bill Pavelic.
"I don't know who had it last," Diamond said.
Prosecutors suspect the tiny item could be a missing fragment of Clarkson's acrylic thumbnail.
Diamond denied he earlier told cops he had seen Pavelic put the white fragment in his pocket.
"That question was put to me and I said 'No,' " he replied.
The ex-law clerk's story dovetails with a 2004 allegation that the defense team had found at the scene - and hidden away - a missing sliver of Clarkson's nail that could prove she struggled before she died or might have tried to block the fatal shot.
But Baden testified immediately after Diamond and denied the incident ever happened.
Today, Caplan, Shapiro and other members of the defense team will be called to the hot seat to tell their sides of the story.
LOAD-DATE: May 3, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: EXCLUSIVE PHOTO: Lana Clarkson one month before she was found dead B-movie starlet Lana Clarkson at convention. Photo by John Chennavasin - ZUMA Press
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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