US:The murder trial of Phil Spector took a turn back to the prosecution on Monday as a former security guard and onetime New York police officer testified that the music producer threatened women and used obscenities to describe how they deserved to die.
After a hearing with the jury out of the room, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler ruled that Vincent Tannazzo could testify.
The judge had previously disallowed the testimony but changed his mind and ruled that Mr Tannazzo's comments were important enough to overcome any prejudice that the jury would feel from the comments about women.
The testimony illustrated Spector's anger about women, the prosecution said.
Spector (67) is charged with shooting Lana Clarkson (40) in the mouth in the early hours of February 3rd, 2003. The defence contends that Ms Clarkson accidentally killed herself in Spector's Alhambra mansion.
Mr Tannazzo, now retired, described how he was working as a security guard for comedian Joan Rivers, who threw a Christmas party in the mid-1990s.
He said Spector made obscene comments about women. "They all deserve a bullet in their head," Mr Tannazzo said Spector told him.
"I ought to put a bullet in her head right now," Mr Tannazzo testified that he heard Spector say at a New York hotel at another Rivers party about seven years before Ms Clarkson's death.
Mr Tannazzo said he frisked Spector after an altercation there between the producer and a woman and said he found a handgun in Spector's belt.
Four women have testified that they had encounters with a drunken Spector who threatened them with guns.
The prosecution argues that Spector had a pattern of menacing women, especially when drunk. The murder of Ms Clarkson was an extreme example of this pattern, the prosecution says.