Posted on 11/20/2003 6:04:54 AM PST by runningbear
Peterson attorney wants $15,000 back
Peterson attorney wants $15,000 back
By JOHN COTÉ and GARTH STAPLEY
BEE STAFF WRITERS
Last Updated: November 19, 2003, 08:20:52 AM PST
Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami plans to hear arguments on releasing two pieces of evidence Dec. 3, when Scott Peterson is to be arraigned on the double-murder charges upheld Tuesday at his preliminary hearing.
Defense attorney Mark Geragos asked prosecutors to release the $15,000 cash Peterson had with him when he was arrested and Peterson's Ford pickup, which police seized in December.
"It's an expensive task for the family to fund this," he said. "It isn't going to get any less expensive."
Prosecutor Rick Distaso opposed the move, saying both items are evidence he intends to introduce at trial.
Chief Deputy District Attorney John Goold, who serves as a spokesman for the district attorney's office, said physical evidence can have more impact on jurors than photos of the items.
Geragos also indicated that he would file motions to move the trial and to ask another judge to overturn Girolami's Tuesday order because of insufficient evidence.
The change of venue motion will be filed Dec. 3, Geragos said in court.
Girolami indicated that he also plans to revisit a gag order he imposed in June that bars people connected to the case from speaking publicly about it.
Geragos, citing the gag order, refused to say outside court why he wants the trial to be held elsewhere.
Asked about Girolami's idea to bus jurors from San Joaquin County to Modesto, which was done in a previous murder trial, Geragos said people in neighboring.......
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EMBATTLED STAR HIRES 'LACI' LAWYER
EMBATTLED STAR HIRES 'LACI' LAWYER
By HOWARD BREUER
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November 20, 2003 -- Workaholic defense attorney Mark Geragos was still in Modesto handling the Scott Peterson preliminary hearing Tuesday when he agreed to defend Michael Jackson against sexual-molestation charges. Geragos insists he can easily juggle California's two highest-profile criminal cases.
"They're just two cases," Geragos told The Post as he worked a conference call with Jackson's people on another line. "There's no problem, no issue."
But longtime Geragos rival Gloria Allred, also an advocate for prosecuting Jackson, said she's worried that this move may cause delays in the Peterson trial.
"Sometimes, as in the O.J. Simpson case, attorneys demand a speedy trial and that can be very effective," Allred said.
For Geragos, Jackson is but the latest in a substantial list of high-.........
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Jacko taps top-shelf mouthpiece
Jacko taps top-shelf mouthpiece
By MAKI BECKER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos (l.) appears with another big-name client, accused murderer Scott Peterson.
Move over, Johnnie Cochran. Mark Geragos - tapped by Michael Jackson to defend him against child molestation charges - is now the lawyer of choice for high-profile suspects.
Some say Geragos already has his hands full defending philandering fertilizer salesman Scott Peterson, who is accused of killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and unborn son in Modesto, Calif. But with 20 years of experience and a slew of celebrity clients, the double challenge may mark the pinnacle of the slick Los Angeles lawyer's career.
The son of an Armenian-American lawyer, Geragos began to show his star power in 1998 and 1999 when he won two acquittals for Whitewater scandal figure Susan McDougal. He kept up his Clinton connection, later representing Bill Clinton's half-brother on drunken driving charges that were dropped after Roger Clinton agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge.
The same year, Geragos got felony charges of kidnapping and making terrorist threats thrown out against rapper Nathaniel (Nate Dogg) Hale.
He has since defended sticky-fingered actress Winona Ryder in her shoplifting trial and represented former Rep. Gary Condit.
Geragos raised eyebrows this April when he agreed to represent Scott Peterson, just days after making an appearance on "Larry King Live" as a commentator about his soon-to-be client: "It's a damning, circumstantial case. The man is a sociopath if he did this crime."
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Experts: Both Sides Will Use Amber Tapes in Peterson Case
Experts: Both Sides Will Use Amber Tapes in Peterson Case
Scott Peterson was having an affair with Amber Frey.
Bill Schechner
Legal experts say that taped phone conversations between Scott Peterson and his girlfriend Amber Frey could have big implications in Peterson's murder case.
Scott Peterson is accused of killing his wife Laci and her unborn son. During the police investigation, Frey let police record her phone conversations with Peterson for almost two months.
One of these 214 calls, a rambling 23-minute conversation, was entered in evidence Tuesday. It includes evasions, denials, and pleas for patience from Peterson as Frey tries to get him to explain himself and events. Criminal lawyer Michele Hagan says it is damaging to his case.
"It goes to the motive," she said.
In the call Frey tells Peterson his stories don't add up.........
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Missing 10 minutes could decide Peterson case
Missing 10 minutes could decide Peterson case Modesto Bee
MODESTO - The case against accused double-murderer Scott Peterson could come down to roughly 10 minutes.
That's the space of time from when someone used Peterson's cell phone in or near his home the morning of Dec. 24 until a neighbor said she found the Petersons' dog standing in the road, its leash dangling from its collar.
If the 10:08 a.m. call indicates the time Peterson left his home, his alibi appears to hang on his pregnant wife mopping the floor, leaving to take the dog for a walk and being abducted during that 10-minute stretch.
Neighbor Karen Servas testified that she found the Petersons' golden retriever standing in the street at 10:18 a.m. She deduced that time after checking a time-stamped receipt and clocking how long it took her to retrace her route to the store.
Peterson told police he left home at about 9:30 a.m. Dec. 24 to go fishing in San Francisco Bay, stopping at a warehouse he used in his work as a fertilizer salesman to get his boat and to check his e-mail, Detective Al Brocchini testified during Peterson's preliminary hearing.
Peterson said when he left, his wife was preparing to mop and planning to run errands before walking their golden retriever, McKenzie, Brocchini said.
Prosecutors contend Peterson murdered his wife and unborn son either late Dec. 23 or early Dec. 24. He could receive the death penalty if convicted on both murder counts.
The bodies were found in April along the bay's eastern shore, less than two miles from the spot where Peterson said he went fishing.
The 10:08 a.m. call from Peterson's cell phone to his voicemail appeared to show the caller driving westward from the Petersons' Covena Avenue home because it switched to a different cell phone tower, district attorney investigator Steve Jacobson testified.
Peterson's Emerald Avenue warehouse is northwest of his home.
"Does it appear that he's driving from the house and that, while making the phone call, that the cell phone site switches?" defense attorney Mark Geragos asked.
"That would be my understanding," Jacobson said.
Cell phone tower data cannot pinpoint a location, Jacobson acknowledged; it can only indicate that the call came from within the area it covered.
The cell tower serving the Petersons' home has a radius .......
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(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
I now feel guilty over not changing some of the wording from the email my sister sent me. :(
There, all better ;) Nice to see you, too. Haven't gotten to spend as much time lately as I would like cavorting (sp)? with everyone here.
Thanks very much for the Modbee article, Rusty! All of Amber/Scott's calls for a period of 93 days I believe, were reviewed per the court records. I don't understand why it's unclear when Amber learned that Scott's wife was missing. Was the question asked on the LD test MPD gave her? If so, did she lie and say Dec. 30 and was later found out to have lied?
Seems like the Modbee has now contacted psychologists to explain away why the poor girl might have lied. What's that all about?
The point at which Frey learned the truth hasn't been made public. But some psychology experts say an abnormal peak in her calls to Peterson -- Dec. 26, coinciding with intensifying reports on the missing Laci Peterson -- could speak volumes.
I wonder why the point at which Frey learned the truth hasn't beem made public. Does anyone else?
Peterson versions collide with law
By JOHN COTÉ
and GARTH STAPLEY
Last Updated: November 23, 2003, 09:07:05 AM PST
Scott Peterson's preliminary hearing on double-murder charges ended with almost as many questions as when it began.
Prosecutors didn't answer how, where or why they believe Laci Peterson was killed.
They didn't show how or when her body found its way to the chilly waters of San Francisco Bay.
The witness who could provide a motive -- Peterson's girlfriend at the time his wife disappeared -- didn't take the stand.
With a low threshold of proof at preliminary hearings, there was little chance Peterson would not be bound over for trial on charges he murdered his wife, Laci, and their unborn son.
"I like to jokingly say it's, 'Is my client breathing?'" defense attorney Mark Geragos said of the standard prosecutors had to meet.
They demonstrated more than that, pummeling Peterson's credibility, raising questions about his alibi and introducing a range of circumstantial evidence that could tie him to the crimes.
But proving the case at trial -- with the death penalty as the announced goal -- is another matter, legal observers said.
Although the bodies were found less than two miles from where Peterson said he went fishing Dec. 24, physical evidence against him seemingly was in short supply.
A single hair found attached to pliers in the bottom of Peterson's fishing boat might have been his wife's. Cement powder spilled on a flat-bed trailer had five bare patches that could indicate Peterson made concrete anchors. A detective found a loaded .22-caliber handgun in Peterson's truck but didn't know the results of a residue test to show whether Peterson fired it.
"This case is a collision of common sense and the law," said Bernie Grimm, a prominent Washington, D.C., defense attorney.
"Common sense will tell you he did it, by the way he acted and the fact that Geragos can't supply who really did it," Grimm said. "But when you apply the law and realize it's a possible lethal injection, are you going to do that based on a hair in a pair of pliers? There's just not enough information -- unless they're holding back some bombshell."
Chief Deputy District Attorney John Goold said prosecutors had put on "some of the evidence, but not all of it."
The defense has filed motions to try to exclude evidence from wiretaps on Peterson's phones, information from vehicle tracking devices and tracking dogs.
Just one call revealed.........
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Mystery persists in Peterson case
NO WEAPON, WITNESSES PUT FORWARD; FULL AIRING OF
Posted on Sun, Nov. 23, 2003
Mystery persists in Peterson case
NO WEAPON, WITNESSES PUT FORWARD; FULL AIRING OF EVIDENCE AWAITS TRIAL
By Julia Prodis Sulek
Mercury News
MODESTO - Is that all there is?
After 12 days of testimony ended last week and piles of police reports were submitted into evidence to try to prove that Scott Peterson killed his pregnant wife and unborn son, that's the lingering question.
A hair, an affair and a fishing trip seemed about all that were needed to persuade a Stanislaus County judge to make Peterson stand trial sometime next year. But do prosecutors have enough evidence to convince a jury that Peterson killed his wife and dumped her body into San Francisco Bay last Christmas Eve?
The full evidence won't be made clear until the trial, expected next spring at the earliest. Last summer, though, Stanislaus County District Attorney James Brazelton promised that the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing would ``open some eyes.''
But Stanislaus County prosecutors produced no smoking gun. No weapon at all, actually. No eyewitness. No blood. And with so little left of Laci Peterson's body after 4 1/2 months in the water, they don't even know how she died.
The best evidence they presented is what most people knew before the hearing began: The 31-year-old fertilizer salesman was having an affair with a Fresno massage therapist and the bodies of his wife and unborn son both washed up within three miles of the Berkeley Marina, where he told police he had been fishing the day his wife disappeared.
It's no coincidence that Peterson was a free man for 4 1/2 months after his wife disappeared before being arrested.
``The reason was the police just didn't have enough of a case to bring him up on charges,'' said Loyola University law Professor Stan Goldman, who attended the preliminary hearing nearly every day as the legal editor for Fox News. ``What changed that is some extremely important evidence -- the bodies washed up right where he had given as his alibi. That is the key to the case for the prosecution.''
If prosecutors do have anything stronger, they're not telling. For a preliminary hearing, they didn't have to.
Hearing Set In Frey's Nude Photos Case
Photographer Tried To Sell Photos To Larry Flynt
POSTED: 7:37 a.m. PST November 24, 2003
UPDATED: 9:11 a.m. PST November 24, 2003
LOS ANGELES -- A hearing is set Monday on a request by the woman who admitted having an affair with accused killer Scott Peterson to stop attempts to sell nude photos of her.
Amber Frey said in her federal lawsuit that she posed nude and partially clothed for a Clovis modeling agency in 1999. Though she decided not to continue with the agency, she didn't pick up the photos, the suit states.
Frey claimed that after she made a public statement about her romantic relationship with Peterson, David Hans Schmidt tried to sell the photographs of her on the World Wide Web.
Peterson was ordered last week to stand trial on charges he murdered his pregnant wife, Laci, who he said disappeared from the couple's Modesto, Calif., home.
Frey contends Schmidt, an Arizona resident, got the photos illegally. She also alleges he "attempted to sell the photographs to third parties, including Larry Flynt for publication in Hustler."
In addition to seeking an injunction, Frey is asking that Schmidt .....
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