Do you remember that Washington Post guy who somehow managed to wiggle himself into the Scooter Libby trial? Well it looks as though someone from NBC has managed to sneak himself into another high-profile trial:
The murder trial of famed record producer Phil Spector is set to open this Wednesday in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. The legendary rock and roll music producer is charged with killing actress Lana Clarkston at his Alhambra mansion February 3rd 2003.
The presiding Judge, Larry Paul Fidler, has agreed that cameras will be allowed in the courtroom and the trial will be televised. Judge Fidler said that he believed it was time to be able move on from the OJ Simpson murder trial. "We have to get by that case," he said. "There's going to come a timethat it will be commonplace to televise trials. If it had not been for Simpson, we'd be there now," Fidler concluded.
It looks like the judge will be getting more than he bargained for with media coverage. The story of how the case is ultimately decided by the jury, will get an even closer inside media look when all is said and done.
Turns out of the jurors selected to serve on the 9 man 3 woman jury, one is none other than a Senior Producer of NBC's newsmagazine Dateline.
The Enterprise Report can report exclusively that the NBC Dateline producer is ADAM GORFAIN, a 41 year old Senior Producer working for NBC News out of its Burbank studios.
Gorfain, a Harvard grad, previously worked for ABC News and other print media outlets before coming to California in 2003 to cover the Michael Jackson molestation case for NBC. Gorfain and his wife, a former NBC Dateline producer herself reside in the Pasadena area of Southern California.
According to Gorfain's own admission he's been working on the Spector case for months. In his juror questionnaire released by the court last Friday Gorfain wrote that "for several months, I have been assigned to this case for NBC News as a senior producer," and informed the court that he had already read numerous court documents in the case. He also pointed out that he was not new to high profile celebrity criminal cases due to his professional experience. He told the court that he had experience covering high profile trials, "I have covered Simpson, Jackson and worked on many others," Gorfain stated.
Gorfain also got into the jury despite having produced a number of specials attacking DNA testing and questioning guilty verdicts in trials. Read the whole story for details. There's no way this guy should ever have been allowed onto the jury. Makes you wonder what's going on in the L.A. district attorney's office.
