BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Lawyer Robert Steinberg's trial on charges he lied to police in reporting the theft of model Vicki Morgan's 'sex tapes' was delayed Friday for an investigation of claims that three other people saw the videos.
Steinberg spoke to accused killer Marvin Pancoast in jail shortly after Pancoast was arrested for Miss Morgan's murder, and claimed he and two unidentified people viewed three videotapes showing top government officials at sex parties with late presidential confidant Alfred Bloomingdale and Miss Morgan.
Pancoast, 33, a former mental patient, pleaded innocent and innocent by reason of insanity to charges he beat Miss Morgan, 30, to death with a baseball bat July 7 in the Hollywood apartment they shared. Miss Morgan, a model, was Bloomingdale's longtime mistress.
Steinberg later said the videotapes had been stolen and pleaded innocent to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report.
Two lawyers defending Pancoast said earlier this week three independent sources, not including Steinberg, said they saw the tapes and would testify at Pancoast's trial, scheduled to begin Dec. 5.
At the request of both sides in Steinberg's case, Municipal Court Judge Andrew Weisz postponed setting a trial date until Dec. 16, after the witnesses were expected to testify in the murder trial.
'The new evidence is highly significant to Steinberg's case,' defense attorney Leonard Levine said. 'Until that evidence is fully explored, it would be unfair to both sides to go to trial without knowing if those witnesses exist and know of the tapes.'
Deputy District Attorney Marsha Revel, who argued before the county grand jury that the tapes never existed, urged 'any credible, material witness' to come forward.
'All I want to do is get to the truth,' she added.
Attorney Arthur Barens, Pancoast's chief counsel, said Wednesday he became convinced the tapes existed after interviewing three people who said they were afraid to come forward but decided to testify at Pancoast's trial.
