LOS ANGELES -- Attorneys for the accused killer of playgirl Vicki Morgan claim the former model planned to blackmail high government officials videotaped during sex orgies and was in 'constant fearof her life.'
In trying to show that others had a motive to kill Miss Morgan, the attorney for murder suspect Marvin Pancoast said Thursday the mistress to late presidential adviser Alfred Bloomingdale 'intended to use the videotapes for blackmail.'
In his opening defense statement, attorney Arthur Barens said three videotapes 'depicting high members of the administration having sex with her' were Miss Morgan's insurance policy as well as a potential danger.
Miss Morgan 'lived in constant fear for her life' because of what she knew about the unnamed officials, Barens claimed.
Another attorney, Michael Dave, who represented Miss Morgan in her sensational 1982 palimony suit against Bloomingdale, testified she feared retaliation from his friends in government.
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, a lawyer claimed he saw the tapes, but he never produced them and later said they had disappeared.
Dave'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 whether it can be submitted when the trial resumes Monday.
Dave said Miss Morgan suspected she was being followed and feared that friends of Bloomingdale, the millionaire department store heir and a member of President Reagan's unofficial 'kitchen cabinet,' might retaliate against 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 insisted Pancoast did not kill Miss Morgan even though he confessed to police shortly after she was beaten to death with a baseball bat. He claimed factural errors in the taped confession will prove Pancoast's innocence.
'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.'
Pancoast, 34, a former talent agency clerk with a history of mental problems, has pleaded innocent and innocent by reason of insanity.
