LOS ANGELES -- An attorney who briefly represented the confessed killer of Vicki Morgan, mistress to presidential confidant Alfred Bloomingdale, said Monday he has videotapes of top government officials participating in 'sex parties' and will offer them to President Reagan.
Robert K. Steinberg said he received the three videotapes from a young woman Saturday night after he was asked to represent Marvin Pancoast, 33, charged with beating Miss Morgan to death with a baseball bat as she slept in her condominium last Thursday.
'It reaches all the way to the head of the country,' Steinberg said, making it clear that he was not indicating the president was on the tapes.
'What she said to me was, 'These will help Marvin (Pancoast),' the attorney quoted the unidentified woman who delivered the tapes as saying.
'I didn't get more than 40 words out of her,' the attorney said. 'She did very little talking. It was, 'Take it or leave it, these are yours now, use them or don't use them. If you don't, I'll go somewhere else.''
Steinberg, a respected criminal attorney in Los Angeles, said he originally considered destroying the tapes but later decided to offer them to the president.
'I'm going to call tomorrow to the White House and if the president wants them he can have them,' Steinberg said in an interview.
'People are saying why don't you give him (Reagan) a chance. Maybe he wants to throw these people out, the rascals.'
Steinberg said the tapes constituted a 'high risk to the national security of the country.
'There are elected officials in the government who are videotaped,' he said. 'It's very embarrassing. It's the kind of thing this country doesn't need right now.'
Steinberg told United Press International six individuals appear on the tapes participating in a variety of sex acts, including 'sex parties.'
In addition to Miss Morgan and the Diners Club founder, he identified the individuals as friends of Bloomingdale.
The tapes, he said, ran about an hour and appeared to have been made within the past five years.
CBS News reported Steinberg went further, saying the individuals shown on the tapes were one businessman, three appointees and one elected official.
Vincent Bugliosi, Steinberg's associate and the former Los Angeles deputy district attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson, said he had briefly discussed the tapes with Steinberg, but had neither seen them nor could verify their existence.
He said earlier statements to UPI regarding the tapes, made by an individual who called UPI purporting to be Bugliosi, were made by an imposter.
'I am highly disturbed that someone would impersonate me in an interview,' he said. The caller told UPI the tapes would 'embarrass the president.'
White House spokesman Robin Gray said late Monday, 'I'm familiar with the story, we're just not commenting on it.'
Steinberg said he was asked by a 'mutual friend' to represent Pancoast, but never intended to handle the entire case. He said his job was to 'set him (Pancoast) up as best we could with the court, a lawyer, psychiatrist and all the things he properly needs.'
He said he withdrew from the case Monday over the handling of the tapes.
Steinberg claimed he viewed the tapes Saturday with an attorney he refused to identify and someone 'from the Department of Justice' he also refused to name.
Attorney Arthur Barens will represent Pancoast and said the suspect in Miss Morgan's murder will plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Monday's scheduled court arraignment for Pancoast was continued until July 25 with bail set at $250,000.
Barens said Steinberg had agreed to play the tapes for him, but he was unable to arrange a meeting Monday depite repeated attempts.
'I'm aware of some material that may be sensitive in nature that I don't want to discuss at this time,' Barens said. 'I'm not going to jump at something that is potentially damaging to other people until I know we are on secure footing.'
Barens said Pancoast told him about videotapes that involve members of the Reagan administration. Asked if believed his client, Barens said, 'I have reasons to believe there are (tapes),' but added he did not believe they would be relevant to the case.
Arens declined to comment on the content of the tapes Pancoast represented Miss Morgan when she filed a $11 million palimony suit in which she described her own sexual activities with Bloomingdale but Miss Morgan pressed her suit against his estate and widow Betsy Bloomingdale, a close friend of Nancy Reagan and a frequent White House guest.
