| SCOTT'S LIES ON T.V. ~ ALSO ANOTHER AFFAIR? Tuesday, February 24, 2004 Scott Peterson had more than one affair, converted his unborn son's nursery into a storage room and lied about his pregnant wife continuing to walk the dog into her third trimester, prosecutors said for the first time in court documents filed Monday. The 10-page document, in outlining what prosecutors call a series of lies that Peterson told television reporters, says Peterson had at least one other affair in addition to his relationship with Amber Frey, a Fresno masseuse. INTERVIEWS Peterson's attorney, Mark Geragos, declined to comment on the prosecution's allegations, saying that would violate a gag order imposed by the court. However, he has asked the judge in the case to exclude all the statements Peterson made to the press after his wife disappeared in the days before Christmas 2002. In a motion filed with the court Feb. 9, Geragos called the media interviews "irrelevant and therefore inadmissible." Prosecutors so far have kept a tight lid on their largely circumstantial case against the Modesto salesman, revealing evidence little by little in pretrial testimony and motions. But they say Peterson's televised statements are "highly relevant and extremely probative" of his guilt, and they want to be able to show a jury the alleged contradictions between what he told reporters and what he told police. The new allegations come just as lawyers in the case began preparing a questionnaire for potential jurors. Prosecutors and the defense are close to finishing a flurry of pretrial motions and expect to start the jury selection process on Monday. Several of the best-known comments Peterson made to the press came in an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer on Jan. 28, 2003. Talking to Sawyer, Peterson painted himself as a father in mourning -- unable to bring himself to enter his unborn son's nursery more than a month after Laci disappeared. "The door is closed until there is someone to go in there," he told Sawyer. But prosecutors said that when police searched Peterson's home on Feb. 18, 2003, he had converted the baby's room -- decorated in a nautical theme -- into a storage room. Peterson also told Sawyer that his wife walked the couple's golden retriever daily. In fact, according to the court filings, investigators have evidence that Laci, eight months pregnant, had stopped walking the dog roughly six weeks before her disappearance. Without revealing a name or details of the second affair, prosecutors said Peterson lied when he told Sawyer that Frey was the only woman with whom he had had an affair. "This was not true," Stanislaus County prosecutor Rick Distaso wrote. "The defendant had had at least one other affair with a woman early in his and Laci's marriage." In interviews with local television reporters, Peterson also was less than truthful about his relationship with Frey, prosecutors alleged. On Jan. 29, 2003, he told KOVR television news that he had broken off his relationship with Frey when Laci Peterson vanished. In fact, prosecutors said, even after Frey contacted police, he continued to telephone her, "at one point comparing his relationship with her to the movie 'Love Affair,' calling it 'a long-term caring relationship.' " "The defendant's statements concerning Amber Frey support motive for the murder," Distaso wrote. During the Sawyer interview, Peterson also said he loaded lawn umbrellas into his truck on the morning Laci Peterson was reported missing. Although he told Sawyer he had put them in his warehouse to protect them for the winter, police found them in the back of his truck later that night. In yet another televised interview, Peterson told KTVU's Ted Rowlands that cement found in his warehouse had come from a project at his house. But prosecutors said they will show that the cement found in Peterson's warehouse did not match cement samples taken from his home. Attorneys on both sides of the case are worried that potential jurors already may have been tainted by the press interviews. They are painstakingly working on a questionnaire that will help them detect who in the jury pool already has formed opinions on the case based on media accounts. Questions on the query include: What magazines and books do you read, what Internet sites do you visit, what television shows do you watch, and what section of the newspaper do you turn to first? What is your opinion of people who have extramarital affairs? What bumper stickers do you have on your car? Have you ever lost a child? The lawyers and Judge Alfred Delucchi, who is presiding over the trial, also want to know whether religious or philosophical beliefs prevent someone from serving as a fair and impartial juror on the case and whether those convictions influence their feelings about capital punishment. Meantime, Delucchi has yet to rule on whether thousands of Peterson's tape-recorded telephone conversations can be used as evidence against the defendant. The judge is expected to hear more evidence on the issue today. Investigators secretly listened in on those conversations from February 2003 to April 2003 because Peterson had become a prime suspect in his wife's disappearance. Peterson's lawyer, Geragos, has asked the judge to throw out the recordings, because 76 of them were conversations his client had had with his original attorney. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Peterson trial Monday's highlights -- The prosecutors filed papers laying out what they called a series of lies told by Scott Peterson to the press. The documents say that in addition to his affair with Amber Frey, Peterson had an affair early in his marriage, and that Peterson didn't tell the truth when he said Laci Peterson walked the couple's dog daily. -- The attorneys began crafting a questionnaire that will be given to jury panelists. Today -- The judge is expected to hear more testimony on the issue of whether to allow Scott Peterson's tape-recorded telephone conversations to be used as evidence. -- The prosecution also is planning to call two dog handlers to testify about their experience with using tracking hounds in missing-person investigations. NEXT Monday -- The parties expect jury selection to begin. HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT CONNER AMBER EVIDENCE-NEWS WIRETAPS AUTOPSY |
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| LACI & CONNER May the Truth be Told |