| GARY NIENHAUSE - Financial Analyst |
| August 2, 2004 Scott Peterson had mounting money problems at home and at work when his pregnant wife went missing, a financial analyst testified Monday. The prosecution expert told jurors at Peterson's double-murder trial that the 31-year-old was $23,000 in credit card debt and failing wildly to meet sales goals at his struggling fertilizer business. But the testimony of Gary Nienhuis stopped far short of establishing a financial motive for the murder of Laci. Under tenacious questioning by a defense lawyer, Nienhuis conceded that the Petersons were in line to collect a lucrative inheritance and had other assets that could erase their debts. Peterson's 27-year-old wife was set to receive about $160,000 from her grandfather's estate on her 30th birthday. If she died before that date, the money went to her siblings, not to her husband. The couple had taken out $250,000 life insurance policies on each other, but an insurance broker testified last week that he pushed them into purchasing the plans a year and a half before the mother-to-be vanished. He also said it was Laci Peterson who insisted on the high amount of her policy. Additionally, the policy did not pay on a missing person for seven years. Nienhuis, a retired banker who works as a government auditor in Modesto, analyzed Peterson's finances at the request of the Modesto police department. Nienhuis testified that he examined tax returns, payroll expenses, credit card statements and other financial records kept by Peterson. His conclusion: Peterson's debt payments rose sharply against his take-home pay from 2001 to 2002. Nienhuis said in 2002, Peterson was paying out nearly 70 percent of his average total monthly take-home pay of $3,694 to cover credit cards bills and other fixed debt. A year earlier, Peterson was paying out 58.7 percent of his cash flow - an average of $4,335 a month - to debt payments, Nienhuis said. Under questioning from prosecutors, he said his analysis indicated Scott was a man with serious financial woes. Peterson earned $60,000 a year running the American division of the Spanish fertilizer company, Tradecorp. Laci Peterson was a substitute teacher, who brought in about $14,000 in 2001, but she had stopped working after becoming pregnant with the couple's first child. Nienhuis said about 70 percent of Peterson's take-home pay had to go toward the couple's debt — including a mortgage and car loan — up about 10 percent from the previous year. "The payments that [the debt] required were high in relation to the cash flow available to make those payments," Nienhuis said, adding that the debt was increasing. He said Peterson was behind on paying medical bills and insurance premiums, and while he always made the minimum payment on credit card bills, he carried a balance on three cards, including $1,200 on a Pier One charge account. Laci Peterson loved to decorate and the couple had recently finished furnishing a nursery. Nienhuis said Scott's business, which was incorporated as a company in 2000, was operating in the red. It lost $136,000 in the first nine months of 2002, he told jurors. "It was not in good shape financially," Nienhuis testified. "It would've required a considerable injection of additional capital to keep it going at that rate." He said Peterson's contract outlined an annual goal of $420,000 in sales, but in November 2002, with just a month left, he had only sold about 23 percent of that target. On cross-examination, defense lawyer Mark Geragos suggested the company was a start-up still finding its bearings and noted that its parent company had about $500 million in annual revenues. To a large multinational company, Scott's losses in Modesto were of little concern, the lawyer implied. In his questioning of Nienhuis, Geragos also focused on the bequest earmarked for Laci Peterson as well as heirloom jewelry she had recently inherited. The jewelry was appraised at more than $100,000. Nienhuis said he was never informed of those assets when he studied Peterson's finances and agreed that if the inheritance came through as expected, its value taken together with the jewelry would exceed the couple's debt. "They'd be sitting pretty, wouldn't they," Geragos asked. "If that happened, yeah," Nienhuis said. The lawyer also noted that Peterson held a country club membership worth $23,000. Nienhuis agreed that it could be sold. Geragos showed jurors excerpts of Peterson's credit report, which verified the defendant never was late with a mortgage or car payment, nor any of his credit cards. "So far, this guy is looking pretty good for a loan," Geragos asked. "In terms of credit history, yes," Nienhuis said. Another prosecution witness, Tradecorp corporate accountant Jeffrey Coleman, confirmed that Peterson's outfit never made a profit and lost $200,000 in 2002. But when Geragos suggested that Tradecorp was more focused on building a reputation in the United States than turning a profit, Coleman agreed that was a real possibility. Asked if the business plan may not have anticipated a profit for four years, Coleman replied, "That would not surprise me." During the financial testimony, Peterson whispered to Geragos and Martin Laffer, a Los Angeles accountant who will serve as an expert witness for the defense. HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST WIRETAPS |
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| LACI & CONNER PRAY FOR JUSTICE |