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Spector 'held me at gunpoint'
10/05/2007 07:14 - (SA)
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| An evidence photo of Phil Spector and prosecution witness Stephanie Jennings. (Jamie Rector, AP) |
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Los Angeles - A celebrity photographer told Phil Spector's murder trial here on Wednesday how the rock music legend held her at gunpoint in a New York hotel after flying into a drunken rage.
Stephanie Jennings said Spector had pulled a handgun on her and prevented her from leaving the luxury Carlyle Hotel after the two had attended the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame Awards in the city in early 1995.
Jennings is the third woman to testify that Spector threatened her with a gun since his trial for the 2003 murder of B-movie actress Lana Clarkson got under way last month.
Prosecutors say Spector, 67, had a "rich history" of flying into gun-toting rages against women that culminated with the murder of Clarkson at his castle-like mansion in Los Angeles.
Testifying at Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, Jennings said she had struck up a casual relationship with Spector in 1994 when she met him at a New York restaurant.
The following year he invited the Philadelphia-based freelance music photographer to attend a star-studded awards ceremony in New York, offering to pay for her room in the five-star Carlyle Hotel.
Jennings said during the awards show after-party she noticed Spector became a "little drunk" and was "extremely obnoxious, loud and insulting".
She returned to her room at the hotel and was awoken by a knock on the door from Spector's bodyguard demanding she go to his suite. When she refused, Spector returned in person.
"He was drunk and demanded that I should go to his room," Jennings said. "We started arguing and he slapped me and pushed me."
When Jennings shoved the producer into a bath-tub he left the room, and returned shortly afterwards holding a gun.
"He put a chair against the door and told me I was not going anywhere," Jennings said. "I thought I was about to be shot."
Jennings said she was able to phone for police because Spector believed she was calling her mother. When police and hotel management arrived she checked out of the hotel and returned to Philadelphia without pressing charges.
Although she stayed in telephone contact with Spector, she broke off relations with him the following year when she stood him up as his date for an awards show. Spector responded by leaving "several threatening phone messages".
"They were horrible," Jennings said. "They were threatening, calling me names I've never been called before."
Spector, the reclusive musical genius who pioneered the 1960s Wall of Sound recording technique, is accused of shooting and killing 40-year-old Clarkson just hours after meeting her at a Hollywood nightclub.
- AFP
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