Phil Spector guilty of 2d-degree murder in '03 death
It was the music producer's second trial. He could get 15 years to life.
LOS ANGELES - Rock-music producer Phil Spector was convicted yesterday of second-degree murder in the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson at his mansion six years ago.
A Superior Court jury returned the verdict after an estimated 29 to 30 hours of deliberations. Spector exhibited no reaction. His attorney argued he should remain free on bail pending the May 29 sentencing, but Judge Larry Paul Fidler remanded him to jail immediately. Second-degree murder carries a penalty of 15 years to life in prison.
Spector's wife of 21/2 years, Rachelle, sobbed as the decision was announced.
The 40-year-old Clarkson, star of the 1985 cult film Barbarian Queen, died of a gunshot fired in her mouth as she sat in the foyer of Spector's mansion in 2003. She had met Spector only hours earlier at her nightclub hostess job.
Prosecutors argued Spector had a history of threatening women with guns when they tried to leave his presence. The defense contended Clarkson killed herself.
It was Spector's second trial. His first jury deadlocked, 10-2, favoring conviction in 2007. The case was vintage lurid Hollywood, and a reminder of the 1960s, when Spector reigned as hit-maker supreme with such songs as the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' " and the Ronettes' classic, "Be My Baby."
Spector, 69, who had long lived in seclusion at his suburban Alhambra "castle," was out on the town in Hollywood when he met Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003, at the House of Blues. Unable to find acting work, she had taken a job as a hostess. When the club closed in the wee hours, she accepted a chauffeured ride to Spector's home for a drink. Three hours later, she was dead.
Spector's chauffeur, the key witness, said he heard a gunshot, then saw Spector emerge holding a gun and heard him say: "I think I killed somebody."
Defense attorney Doron Weinberg disputed whether the chauffeur remembered the words accurately.
Prosecutors portrayed Spector as a dangerous man who became a "demonic maniac" when he drank and had a history of threatening women with guns. As in the first trial, they presented testimony from five women who told of being threatened by a drunken Spector, even held hostage in his home, with a gun pointed at them and threats of death if they tried to leave.
Haunted by the acquittals of stars such as O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, and Michael Jackson, prosecutors at first seemed invested in making Spector the first showbiz star to be convicted in a major criminal case.
But after the first trial ended in a deadlock, public interest faded. The second six-month trial was played out in a sparsely populated courtroom with few media members present.