Attorney Robert K. Steinberg, who claims he was given three videotapes showing government officials in 'sex parties,' unleashed a scandal most lawyers would have happily avoided.
Steinberg, associated with some of the nation's foremost attorneys, volunteered to a reporter during a routine call Monday he had the tapes and scandal could reach all the way to the 'head of the country.'
He spent the next 24 hours answering questions about the tapes, which he said showed the late presidential confidant Alfred Bloomingdale, his recently murdered mistress Vicki Morgan and several unidentified officials participating in sexual acts.
By the end of the day Tuesday, Steinberg looked shaken and agitated and told reporters camped outside his office he wished he had destroyed the tapes Monday.
Steinberg gave conflicting accounts of who was on the tapes, where he kept them and why he revealed their existence. At one point he said he would destroy the tapes, then he offered them to the White House.
One day after he announced he had the tapes, Steinberg told police they were stolen from his office. A short time later he was served with a subpoena to produce the material in court.
It was never certain whether the 46-year-old lawyer actually had the allegedly scandalous material. It was less clear why he would lie about it.
'He's not handled this very well at all,' said a well-known Los Angeles attorney who has known Steinberg for more than 20 years. 'But he's certainly not crazy. At least he wasn't last week.'
Noted attorney Melvin Belli said Steinberg worked in his Los Angeles office for 10 years until about 1975. Belli described him as 'very reliable.'
'I would depend on what he said,' Belli said. 'If there were two golden keys presented to me to heaven, and one was held by Ronald Reagan and the other by Steinberg ... I'd take Steinberg.
'I think he's OK. I'd rely on him.'
Vincent Bugliosi, the former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson, has been associated with Steinberg for 10 years and shares his Beverly Hills office.
'He's a competent criminal defense attorney,' Bugliosi said.
Steinberg, a registered Democrat, graduated from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and passed the bar in 1963. The Butte, Mont., native has a rating of 'high to very high' legal ability as listed by 1983 law directory, Martindale-Hubbell.
He has the highest rating given for 'faithful adherence, reliability and deligence,' according to the directory.
Attorney F. Lee Bailey said he was also briefly associated with Steinberg, trying several cases with him.
Bailey, whose name remains on Steinberg's office door, said in an interview they have not worked on a case together or spoken in about six years.
He said Steinberg was also once a partner of Los Angeles attorney Sam Brody, who died with sex symbol Jayne Mansfield and a chauffuer in a 1967 car accident near New Orleans.
In 1969, Steinberg ran for mayor of Los Angeles, receiving only 1,615 of the 713,844 votes cast in the April primary. He later campaigned for Mayor Sam Yorty in his successful re-election campaign against Tom Bradley, then a member of the city council.
Bradley, who charged Steinberg accused him of anti-Semitism during the bitter mayoral campaign, opposed the lawyer's appointment the following year to the Board of Animal Regulation Commissioners and angrily denounced him in the City Council.
'In all my years in public life,' Bradley was quoted by the Los Angeles Times, 'I have never come across a man who demonstrated less integrity, less principle, who was more vicious in his public statements.'
He added, 'This man, in my judgment, is a vicious liar.'
Steinberg's resume states he once served on the Los Angeles County Obscenity and Pornography Commission as well as on advisory boards to the offices of the district attorney and mayor. He and his wife, Elaine, have three children.
