In a courtroom with dimmed lights that recalled the dark Alhambra estate where an actress was shot to death six years ago, a prosecutor Monday called Phil Spector a "demonic maniac" with "a history of playing Russian roulette with the lives of women."
"By the grace of God, five other women got the empty chamber and lived to tell," Deputy Dist. Atty. Truc Do said, referring to a string of former love interests who testified at Spector's murder retrial about harrowing encounters with him.
Actress Lana Clarkson, shot to death in a chair in Spector's foyer in 2003, "just happened to be the sixth woman who got the bullet," Do said.
In a two-hour closing argument supplemented by an elaborate audiovisual presentation, Do portrayed the legendary music producer as a spoiled and sadistic celebrity who tormented women with impunity because he resided in an elite "world where money and fame buys you the VIP treatment."
"Behind the VIP was a very dangerous man, a man who believed that all women . . . deserve a bullet in their head," she said.
Spector, 69, stared expressionless at the defense table as he has for much of the last five months of testimony. His attorney repeatedly objected to what he said were impermissible attacks on the producer's character. At the conclusion of the prosecutor's summation, lawyer Doron Weinberg asked for a mistrial. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler denied the request.
The defense is to present its closing argument Tuesday. Jurors are expected to start deliberating the charges against Spector by week's end.
Jurors must decide whether Spector acted criminally in the shooting of Clarkson, 40. His defense contends that she was depressed over career setbacks and financial problems and shot herself. Prosecutors argue that Spector pulled a gun on her, as he allegedly had done to other female guests, when he was drunk and she expressed a desire to curtail a romantic evening.
As the prosecutor spoke, jurors stared intently at a large projection screen displaying video clips, transcripts of testimony and police photos. One picture snapped by investigators showed a desk in Spector's home adorned with a poster of a gun.
"Never mind the dog, beware of the owner," it read.
