First day in Phil Spector’s new life brings a strip search, a jumpsuit and a jail cell
Chris Ayres in Los Angeles
His booking number: 1873015. His “housing location”: the Twin Towers Correctional Facility — the world’s largest jail, covering 1.5 million square feet, in a grim industrial area a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
When Phil Spector woke up yesterday morning, the 69-year-old music producer and former Beatles collaborator found himself in surroundings very different from his 30-bedroom “castle” in the suburb of Alhambra.
Gone was his 28-year-old Playboy-model bride. Gone was his chauffeured Mercedes-Benz. Gone also was his usual selection of elaborate wigs, Teddy Boy loafers and pinstriped, long-tailed coats.
He had been found guilty of seconddegree murder for shooting Lana Clarkson, a 40-year-old former
B-movie star whom he picked up from the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, in 2003. After he was booked by the Sheriff’s Department, the Sixties music legend was driven from the courtroom to the Twin Towers facility where he was subjected to the standard pre-admission strip-search, issued with a fluorescent jumpsuit and then shown to his cell in a segregated part of the jail.
It was not known yesterday if he had a cellmate. A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department told The Times that Spector had not been subjected to solitary confinement in “the hole”. “There’s no such thing as ‘the hole’,” he said. “We always separate recognisable or high-profile inmates.”
Spector will almost certainly remain in Twin Towers until his next court appointment on May 29. It is then that Judge Larry Paul Fidler will decide his sentence — a minimum of 18 years, legal experts say — before placing him in state custody. From there he will be sent to one of California’s state prisons. By the time he completes his sentence he will be at least 87 years old.
Having spent the past six years living in semi-freedom on $1 million bail — during which he sat silently through not one but two murder trials, the first of which was rendered void when the jury could not reach a verdict — Spector must have dreaded being taken into custody.
Yet for a long time after the murder it looked as if he might walk away a free man. Indeed, the Los Angeles Times claimed yesterday that Spector was the first celebrity found guilty of murder on Hollywood’s home turf in at least 40 years, after the infamous acquittals of O. J. Simpson, the football player, and Robert Blake, the ex-Baretta TV actor.
When the verdict was read out in court, the prosecution team celebrated as both Spector’s wife and the jury forewoman wept. Spector briefly gaped before returning to his blank frown. “He took it very stoically,” said Doron Weinberg, his defence lawyer. “He wanted to know what is next.”
The answer to his question is twofold: he will almost certainly face ruinous wrongful-death lawsuits from his victim’s family, and his legal team will begin an appeal. In the meantime, he will remain at the Twin Towers jail at 450 Bauchet Street, a mere nine miles or 15 minutes away from his former life and former home.
Chris Ayres in Los Angeles
His booking number: 1873015. His “housing location”: the Twin Towers Correctional Facility — the world’s largest jail, covering 1.5 million square feet, in a grim industrial area a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
When Phil Spector woke up yesterday morning, the 69-year-old music producer and former Beatles collaborator found himself in surroundings very different from his 30-bedroom “castle” in the suburb of Alhambra.
Gone was his 28-year-old Playboy-model bride. Gone was his chauffeured Mercedes-Benz. Gone also was his usual selection of elaborate wigs, Teddy Boy loafers and pinstriped, long-tailed coats.
He had been found guilty of seconddegree murder for shooting Lana Clarkson, a 40-year-old former
B-movie star whom he picked up from the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, in 2003. After he was booked by the Sheriff’s Department, the Sixties music legend was driven from the courtroom to the Twin Towers facility where he was subjected to the standard pre-admission strip-search, issued with a fluorescent jumpsuit and then shown to his cell in a segregated part of the jail.
It was not known yesterday if he had a cellmate. A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department told The Times that Spector had not been subjected to solitary confinement in “the hole”. “There’s no such thing as ‘the hole’,” he said. “We always separate recognisable or high-profile inmates.”
Spector will almost certainly remain in Twin Towers until his next court appointment on May 29. It is then that Judge Larry Paul Fidler will decide his sentence — a minimum of 18 years, legal experts say — before placing him in state custody. From there he will be sent to one of California’s state prisons. By the time he completes his sentence he will be at least 87 years old.
Having spent the past six years living in semi-freedom on $1 million bail — during which he sat silently through not one but two murder trials, the first of which was rendered void when the jury could not reach a verdict — Spector must have dreaded being taken into custody.
Yet for a long time after the murder it looked as if he might walk away a free man. Indeed, the Los Angeles Times claimed yesterday that Spector was the first celebrity found guilty of murder on Hollywood’s home turf in at least 40 years, after the infamous acquittals of O. J. Simpson, the football player, and Robert Blake, the ex-Baretta TV actor.
When the verdict was read out in court, the prosecution team celebrated as both Spector’s wife and the jury forewoman wept. Spector briefly gaped before returning to his blank frown. “He took it very stoically,” said Doron Weinberg, his defence lawyer. “He wanted to know what is next.”
The answer to his question is twofold: he will almost certainly face ruinous wrongful-death lawsuits from his victim’s family, and his legal team will begin an appeal. In the meantime, he will remain at the Twin Towers jail at 450 Bauchet Street, a mere nine miles or 15 minutes away from his former life and former home.
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