Spector Defense Fights Tooth and Nail Against Tamper Claims

Phil Spector's murder trial may be on hold following the illness of a defense attorney, but, as the court learned yesterday, surprise testimony waits for no man.

During motions hearings Wednesday and Thursday, several members of the producer's former legal team took to the witness stand to testify that a piece of evidence was removed from the crime scene.

Gregory Diamond, who clerked for attorney Robert Shapiro's firm at the time of Lana Clarkson's alleged murder, told the court that he saw lawyer Sarah Caplan pick up a small piece of white material, believed to be either a piece of tooth or fingernail, from the carpet of Spector's suburban Los Angeles home while investigating the scene.

Diamond claimed that the material was found near the foyer, where prosecutors claim the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer shot and killed Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003. Per Diamond, the material was passed around among members of Spector's defense team, but was never handed over to prosecutors.

The defense team's three-hour sweep of the home, which Diamond says he was asked by Shapiro to observe, took place just after the Los Angeles Police Department carried out its initial investigation. Diamond said the officers missed finding the small piece of evidence.

Diamond claimed that after Caplan found the piece of evidence, she handed it off to forensics experts Dr. Henry Lee and Dr. Michael Baden, both of whom were present for the sweep and who are set to testify for the defense. Both men were also called as defense witnesses during the O.J. Simpson murder trial (where Shapiro served as one of the members of the former football star's so-called legal dream team). Baden is married to one of Spector's six defense lawyers, Linda Kenney Baden.

Spector's defense has since undergone several overhauls and, while neither Shapiro nor Caplan no longer represent the producer, both were present in court to counter, at least partially, Diamond's testimony.

However, Diamond's claims support the prosecution's long-held belief that a fragment of Clarkson's fingernail was found and removed from the scene before their arrival. Back in 2004, the D.A.'s office filed a motion requesting that Spector's team turn over the evidence, which prosecutors believed had been "blackened on one side with visible gunpowder residue."

Diamond, however, testified that Baden identified the item not as a fingernail but as a tooth fragment.

Diamond's testimony was bolstered in part on Thursday by a more than surprising ally—Caplan herself.

Taking the stand, Caplan denied that she had tampered with evidence, saying she "would never touch an object at an alleged crime scene, ever." However, she could not say the same for some of her former colleagues.

Caplan claimed that during the investigation she simply pointed out a few areas that might be of interest for the defense's forensics team to focus on and that it was Lee who found the white object, mused that it "might be interesting" and placed it in a vial.

Stan White, a private investigator working for Shapiro, later testified that he saw Lee scoop something up and proclaim, "I think I've found some tissue."

"I said it looked like a piece of fingernail," White said adding that it appeared to have some kind of residue on it. "It looked like a defensive wound fingernail," he said.

White said that Lee showed the item to other people in the foyer.

Caplan, however, specifically said during her testimony that White was outside during the sweep of the home. It will be up to It will be up to Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler to reconcile the various accounts.

For its part, Spector's current team insists there is no missing evidence.

Taking the stand at Wednesday's evidentiary hearing, Baden not only denied that he examined and identified the tooth fragment but also testified that nothing of the sort was even found at the scene.

Furthermore, he said he had "no idea who Greg Diamond is," adding that he couldn't recall the former clerk even being present for the team's investigation. Shapiro's private investigator, Bill Pavelic, however, confirmed that Diamond was indeed present that night.

Should the evidence have existed, be it a fingernail or a tooth fragment, it would lend itself to the theory that a struggle between Clarkson and Spector took place prior to her death, further buffeting the prosecution's case that the shooting was not the result of a suicide.

Fidler called the special hearing, held without the jury present, after Diamond came forward to tell his account to authorities last month. Diamond, who admitted to having pitched a legal series to CBS in 2004, twice invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, but both times was ordered by Fidler to answer the defense team's questions.

Earlier in the week, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson accused another member of Spector's team of withholding a different type of evidence from the prosecution—his legal opinion.

In court papers filed Monday, Jackson accused Lee of failing to share his conflicting theory on the pattern of Clarkson's spattered blood found at the scene, instead announcing it during an interview with Court TV on the day of the prosecution's opening statements, potentially undermining their argument.

"The result is that the jury has been given an incorrect view of the state of the case, and the people's case may have been unfairly damaged," Jackson said in the filing.

Should Fidler determine that any member of Spector's former defense team withheld evidence from the prosecution, sanctions may be imposed on the lawyers, including disqualification of Baden and Lee as witnesses.

The trial is scheduled to resume with the jury present on Monday. The break was taken after Spector's lead defense attorney, Bruce Cutler, fell ill, reportedly due to complications with diabetes medication.