LOS ANGELES -- Vicki Morgan, mistress to late presidential adviser Alfred Bloomingdale, planned to blackmail high government officials shown in sex acts on videotapes she possessed, an attorney for her accused killer said Thursday.
Miss Morgan 'lived in constant fear for her life' because of what she knew about the unnamed officials, attorney Arthur Barens said in opening defense statements at the murder trial for Marvin Pancoast.
Another attorney, who represented Miss Morgan in her palimony suit against Bloomingdale, testified Thursday that she feared retaliation from his friends in government.
'The three videotapes depicting high members of the administration having sex with her' were Miss Morgan's insurance policy as well as a potential danger, Barens said, saying she 'intended to use the tapes for blackmail.'
The existence of videotapes showing Miss Morgan, Bloomingdale and government officials at sex parties has never been proven. Several days after Miss Morgan was beaten to death July 7, 1983, another attorney claimed he saw the tapes, but he never produced them.
Attorney Michael Dave, who represented Miss Morgan in her sensational 1982 palimony suit against Bloomingdale, the millionaire department store heir who was a member of President Reagan's unofficial 'kitchen cabinet,' testified that Miss Morgan had told him she was worried about her safety.
'At various times in the 10-month period preceding her death she expressed concern over her safety,' Dave said.
The attorney's testimony was taken outside the presence of the jury after prosecutors objected to its relevancy. Superior Court Judge David Horowitz accepted a defense suggestion to allow the testimony and decide later whether it can be submitted when trial resumes Monday.
Dave said Miss Morgan suspected she was being followed and feared that friends of Bloomingdale in government might retaliate against her by using such agencies as the IRS to harass her.
Miss Morgan filed the palimony suit after Bloomingdale cut off her support payments shortly before he died from cancer. A judge later dismissed most of the suit.
Barens, making his opening statements one day after the prosecution rested its case, insisted that Pancoast did not kill Miss Morgan even though he confessed to police shortly after she was beaten to death with a baseball bat.
'Someone else killed Vicki Morgan,' Barens said. 'Marvin Pancoast loved her.'
The attorney said Pancoast, who was living with Miss Morgan at her North Hollywood condominium, confessed because of a 'tortured mind.'
'He woke up to find Vicki Morgan dead in bed beside him,' Barens said. 'He blamed himself for not protecting her. He blamed himself to the point where he felt responsible.'
The taped confession will prove Pancoast innocent because of all the factual errors it contains about the crime, Barens added.
Barens also sought to shift blame for the killing to a writer who was having an affair with Miss Morgan at the time of her death and was helping her write her autobiography.
The writer, Gordon Basichis, 'was a desperate man' because he feared the book project was being terminated, Barens said.
The first defense witness Thursday was Jewell Seaver, the writer's former landlady, who testified she found an envelope of cocaine hidden in a heating vent when Basichis and his wife were evicted from their home in October 1983.
The landlady also testified that Basichis once offered to hypnotize her, and defense attorneys said that showed he had a 'manipulative' skill he could have used to program Pancoast into confessing.
Pancoast, 34, a former talent agency clerk with a history of mental problems, has pleaded innocent and innocent by reason of insanity.
