Posted on 05/28/2003 1:14:59 AM PDT by kattracks
With as many as three girlfriends, multiple cell phones to stay in touch and a checking account hidden from his wife, Scott Peterson had a busy secret life, a source close to the double-murder investigation revealed.Investigators also have evidence that Peterson - accused of killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, named Conner - made a "significant purchase" of items that could have been used to anchor a body, a second source familiar with the case said.
Investigators need to find the items to "connect all the dots," that source said.
The bodies of Laci and Conner washed ashore last month in San Francisco Bay, near where Scott Peterson, 30, had told cops he went fishing Christmas Eve. He reported his 27-year-old wife missing after returning that night.
Peterson, a fertilizer salesman, has proclaimed his innocence. His lawyer, Mark Geragos, has vowed to help him find the real killer.
Lawyer Gloria Allred, representing Peterson's admitted mistress, Amber Frey, urged any other girlfriends to step forward yesterday. Allred also met with prosecutors to discuss their plans to call Frey as a witness, possibly during a preliminary hearing scheduled for July 16.
Peterson, who is being held without bond, showed up in court yesterday aslawyers wrangled over an array of issues, from unsealing document towiretaps.
His bleach blond locks had been shorn to a near-buzz cut that was back to his original dark brown. He said nothing, appearing confident and sometimes flashing a smug grin as the legal eagles duked it out.
Judge Al Girolami heard arguments from California newspapers that want sealed documents - including search warrants and autopsy results - to be made public. He said he would rule this week.
Girolami also threatened to issue a gag order. "Every day we hear about something in the paper that we don't hear in court," he said. "I think we need a protective order."
The judge ordered prosecutors to give Peterson's camp copies of 69 phone conversations that law enforcement intercepted between the defendant and his lawyers in the months before his arrest.
Details of those conversations were disclosed Monday on Fox News Channel, which reported that Peterson told Frey in one conversation: "I know who did it, and I'll tell you later when I see you." That meeting never occurred.
Defense sources have raised the possibility that Laci Peterson was killed as part of a satanic ritual or by a strange man spotted in the neighborhood the day she disappeared.
After the court proceedings, Geragos said the defense team has received several helpful tips from the public that the police also are looking into.
"The big cases tend to bring out the big nuts," he conceded, "but a lot of information we have received has been very good."
Originally published on May 28, 2003
Geez. If you're gonna kill someone, buy these things in advance!
I'll bet my 51 year old husband, overweight and all, could out duel good old sp in THAT dept! lol
I can't believe that viagra is so popular in America.....are American men that in need of it, because I thought it was for the elderly, the sick, or the impotent....
They may be the facts as you see them, since you're obviously looking at them from a lawyers' point of view, but that doesn't make them FACTS. They're still your opinions.
And we, even as armchair legal "experts," have a right to deconstruct that BS that emminates from any and ALL attorneys. We're not as dumb as you all think we are.
of a nature that the defense would be highly unlikely to leak
Please try harder not to insult the intelligence of the posters on this forum; not too many of us are as gullible as you attorneys would like for us to be.
Most of the stuff we've heard since Geragos took the case has been stuff that is detrimental to Peterson and all the reporters had admitted that they are coming FROM THE DEFENSE; see my post above, i.e., the Clinton technique.
unavailable to the defense at the present time
If you're saying that Scott Peterson isn't telling the truth to his own attorneys, I'll buy that. So far as I can see, he's incapable of actually telling the truth about anything -- which obviously accounts for the pained look on Geragos' face yesterday.
It would not surprise me at all...
Maybe she even got pregnant in a futile move to try to hold onto him, the make her marriage work or try to convince him to grow up and settle down. The wronged spouse usually knows or at least senses something is going on.
What about latent gay men who aren't attracted to women really but are trying very hard to prove they aren't homosexual by showing themselves how heterosexual they are by having many affairs ----but since women don't really appeal to them deep down, they need viagra. They don't really love women ---they just pretend ---so they can murder one.
I read a quote from Geragos that the high profile cases "bring out the big nuts". I think we might be surprised how many people are out there that have a very tenuous gripe on sanity.
Why do you say "(barely"). Calls such as the ones at issue would be privileged, period.
That being said, it's not uncommon that client / attorney calls are monitored or taped (hopefully not both :) - how could it be otherwise? It takes a while to be able to identify the voices, since the parties don't always identify themselves. LE usually just turns on the tape recorder, they don't typically monitor the calls 24/7, esp a small dept like the MPD. However, the reports of the MPD taping 'only 2 calls' of the 69 calls logged between Scott & his attorney would seem to indicate that they were monitoring the calls.
Just because the calls are taped / monitored doesn't present a problem for the prosecution, or a real opening for the defense.
The trick, for LE, is to not use any information that they gain from those taped calls. The defense will have every syllable of those calls memorized, and if any info from them appears in court, the prosecution will have to demonstrate that it came from a source other than the tapes.
Where the prosecution can get in real trouble is trying to conceal which / how many cals they have taped. Not suggesting these guys would do it, but all hell will break lose if they try to cover up some tapes.
Sorry, that one won't fly with me. The 'Clinton technique', as you choose to call it, is simply known as good crisis management in other circles (see Johnson & Johnson and the Tylenol scare for the classic example of how to do it, see Nixon and Watergate for the classic example of how not to do it).
That approach makes sense when the information involved is bound to come out anyway - little of what we've heard so far re: Scott & Amber is of that nature, since it'll be inadmissable in court. Or are you saying that it's a premptive strike against what the defense thinks the prosecution and / or Amber faction will disclose via leaks?
"If you're saying that Scott Peterson isn't telling the truth to his own attorneys, I'll buy that."
If you're suggesting that Scott remembers all 69 calls that the MPD monitored / logged, much less the hundreds of other calls that they must have taped, I won't buy that.
Absolutely.
If you're suggesting that Scott remembers all 69 calls that the MPD monitored / logged, much less the hundreds of other calls that they must have taped, I won't buy that.
I'm saying that if it's true that Scott Peterson had a secret checking account and he didn't tell his attorney about it, then Mark Geragos finally has the client he deserves.
The continued sealing of the warrants is a bit more troubling, however ameliorated by the fact that they'll hold a prelim hearing rather than convene a grand jury. Prosecution's case gets laid on the table at that point, then we'll see why they are still 'investigating' so long after the crime / warrants / Amber tapings / arrest, etc.
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