LOS ANGELES -- Vicki Morgan, slain mistress to presidential confidant Alfred Bloomingdale, was planning a book that would name political figures, including presidential advisor Edwin Meese, a witness testified Tuesday.
Sharon Porto, a friend of the victim's mother, Connie Laney, testified that Miss Morgan, 30, was working on a book about her affair with Bloomingdale, a member of President Reagan's 'kitchen cabinet' until his death from cancer in 1982.
Mrs. Porto said the victim's mother told her the book would be Miss Morgan's memoirs of people in the government.
'The book was going to be about Bloomingdale and about government things,' Mrs. Porto testified. 'Vicki was going to name a lot of government people. Meese was one name I heard from Connie Laney.'
The testimony came during the second day of the trial of Marvin Pancoast, a former talent agency clerk charged with the July 7, 1983, bludgeon slaying of Miss Morgan, with whom he shared a condominium.
Defense attorney Arthur Barens, who earlier suggested outside court that someone other than Pancoast killed Miss Morgan, asked if the victim's mother ever told Mrs. Porto about her daughter's involvement with political figures in the Reagan administration.
The questioning, however, was cut short by prosecutor Stanley Weisberg who objected on grounds that the testimony was irrelevant. Superior Court Judge David Horowitz, after a 10-minute conference with the attorneys, forbade any further questions about political figures.
Outside court, Weisberg characterized Mrs. Porto's testimony about the book as 'totally unreliable.'
He did confirm, however, that such a book existed and that court officials have it in their possession.
Declining to say whether the book named any political figures in compromising situations, Weisberg said he was 'not at liberty to discuss it, but there's nothing earth shattering.'
The book was obtained under subpoena from ghost writer Gordon Basichis.
Pancoast, who has a history of psychiatric problems, pleaded innocent and innocent by reason of insanity to the first-degree murder charges. He sat in the courtroom flanked by his attorneys and gazed warily at the crowded gallery with his eyes darting from person to person.
Miss Morgan gained notoriety in 1982 when she filed a multimillion dollar palimony suit against Bloomingdale. A judge later dismissed most of the suit, describing Miss Morgan as a well-paid prostitute.
Barens said a central issue in the case would be the so-called sextapes that purportedly show Miss Morgan at orgies with top government officials. Barens said he can prove the existence of the tapes, but refused to say if he could or would produce them.
Earlier, Pancoast's two attorneys suggested Miss Morgan's ex-boyfriend might have beaten her to death.
Speaking to a crowd of reporters outside the courtroom, Barens characterized his client as a 'perennial confessor,' and said Basichis may have bludgeoned Miss Morgan to death with a baseball bat on July 7, 1983.
Barens said Pancoast, who confessed to Miss Morgan's murder the night of the slaying, also confessed to the sensational Manson family murders of actress Sharon Tate and others in 1969.
'Witnesses will testify he will confess to anything,' Barens said.
Barens and co-counsel Charles Mathews attacked the police investigation of Basichis, a writer who had an affair with Miss Morgan and was working with her on a book about her relationship with Bloomingdale.
