The Continuing Adventures Of Your Own Personal Jesus

Adriano De Souza was working as a valet parking attendant at the Grill in the Alley (the Grill), a Beverly Hills restaurant. There he met Phil Spector’s chauffeur, who asked if De Souza wanted to work as Spector’s backup driver. De Souza agreed because he could make between $30 and $40 an hour driving for Spector. By February 2003, De Souza had driven Spector between 12 and 15 times over the course of three or four months. These backup driving jobs were arranged by Michelle Blaine, Spector’s secretary, who would call De Souza a few hours before he was needed. De Souza would arrange for someone to cover his shift at the Grill and then drive his own car to Spector’s house in Alhambra. After going through the main entrance gate, De Souza would drive to the back of the house, park, prepare Spector’s car and wait for him to come out. Spector had two cars, a Rolls Royce and a brand new Mercedes. De Souza testified Spector would tell him where to drive and that he always understood Spector...

Vincent Tannazzo testified that, after retiring from the New York City Police Department, he started a private security company. One of his clients was Joan Rivers. Tannazzo was acquainted with Dorothy Melvin because she was Rivers’s manager, and he knew Melvin had been dating Spector. Sometime between 1991 and 1994, while providing security for a Christmas party hosted by Rivers, Tannazzo was stationed in the lobby of her New York City apartment building, checking visitors against the guest list. At one point during the party, Melvin telephoned Tannazzo, upset, and said, “Vinnie, get up here. Phil Spector just pulled out a gun.” Tannazzo unholstered his gun, put it in his jacket pocket, and took the elevator up toward Rivers’s apartment. When the elevator doors opened at the second floor, Tannazzo saw Spector and Melvin arguing. Spector was “out of control” and he “kept saying these fucking cunts, these fucking cunts, over and over again.” not directing his words at her.  Melvin ...

In the spring or early summer of 1991, Melissa Grosvenor, a waitress in New York, developed a “romantic but platonic” dating relationship with Phil Spector. At this time, Spector was living in a penthouse suite of a New York hotel but also kept a home in Pasadena. In October 1992, about a year and a half after Grosvenor and Spector began dating, she accepted Spector’s invitation to come to California to see him. Sometime between November 1992 and early 1993, Grosvenor flew on a plane to Los Angeles using a ticket Spector bought for her, arriving at the Los Angeles International Airport at about 1:00 p.m. At the airport, a driver picked her up and took her to a hotel in Pasadena that Spector had arranged for her to stay at. Sometime before 9:00 p.m., Spector’s driver picked up Spector and Grosvenor and took them to a restaurant at the Beverly Hills Hotel. They had dinner there, and both ordered alcoholic drinks. Spector drank his drink. Their dinner was pleasant and lasted between an...

In 1982, after having several dinners with Phil Spector and others at La Maganet in Beverly Hills, Dianne Ogden agreed to have dinner alone with Spector there one evening at about 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. During dinner, Spector drank alcohol. Ogden then agreed to see Spector’s home in Beverly Hills. Ogden and Spector went inside his house.  After talking and seeing Spector’s house, Ogden told him that she needed to go home and had to work the next day. Spector did not want her to go home.   He “disappeared”––ran off and left Ogden alone.  Ogden got ready to leave and put her purse over her shoulder.  She heard a buzz; Spector had locked the door on her. She pleaded with Spector to go home. She had never seen Spector act this way before. She was worried but also considered that she had known him for a few months and thought that he was just playing with his door and his buzzer. She begged Spector a couple more times. After 30 minutes, Spector finally unlocked the doo...

Beginning on June 23, 1975, Devra Robitaille, a British pianist, worked for Phil Spector for about four to four-and-a-half years as the administrative director of his label, Warner-Spector Records.   Robitaille idolized Spector and thought he was a genius. About a year after Robitaille began working with Spector, they began a romantic relationship, which, for her, was an extramarital affair. During this relationship, Robitaille frequently organized parties for Spector at his home in Beverly Hills. At one of these parties, after the other guests had gone home, Robitaille stood in the foyer, very tired and wanting to leave. The door was locked so she asked Spector if he would let her out. Spector left the foyer for a few minutes. While Robitaille was ready to leave, looking at the door and wearing her purse and jacket, she felt the cold barrel of a gun at her left temple. Robitaille turned and saw the gun; Spector held it with two hands at her left temple. Spector had been dr...

In about April 1994, Stephanie Jennings, a professional photographer with a focus in the music business, began a long-distance dating relationship with Phil Spector. Jennings lived in Philadelphia but had an agency in New York City while Spector’s primary residence was Pasadena. When Spector was around Jennings, he frequently carried guns on his person. On January 12, 1995, from about 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m., Jennings was Spector’s guest at an after-party at the Waldorf Astoria for a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee award dinner. Spector was drinking and unpleasant, making obnoxious statements; this change in demeanor was something that Jennings had seen before. The drunker Spector got, the louder, more obnoxious, and more unpleasant he became. After the party, Jennings took a taxi back to Spector’s hotel by herself, went to her room, and fell asleep. Later, between about 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., Spector’s bodyguard woke her up with a knock on her hotel room door. The bodyguard said th...

While living in New York, Dorothy Melvin, Joan Rivers’s manager, dated Phil Spector from about 1989 or 1990 until 1993. On July 3, 1993, Melvin, who was seeing her family in the Los Angeles area, visited Spector at his home in Pasadena. In the course of the evening, Spector drank a lot of vodka from a “somewhat full” bottle, becoming increasingly talkative and outgoing, laughing and quoting. Later that evening, Spector went away for a period of time. At about midnight or 1:00 a.m., Melvin lay down on the couch and fell asleep for several hours. Melvin awoke before daybreak, looked out the open front door, and saw Spector pointing a .38 snub-nose revolver at her brand-new car in the circular motor court. She moved to within a foot of Spector and started screaming, “What the [fuck] do you think you’re doing?” At this time, Melvin was angry, not afraid, believing that it was just “another one of his shows of bravado.” Spector turned and said over his shoulder, “Get back in the house....

Back in around 1658 I worked as a person who’d lease shrubberies to the underprivileged. One of my customers came from a place that made Borstal look white, clean and neat, but there he sat, waiting for someone to spring him to freedom. He was born with a mild intellectual, and a physical, disability, as a result of which his family shunned him and left him to fend for himself. He basically pinballed around the place, always looking for a new shrub to hide beneath and hopefully call his own, instead of the branch that he currently had. When I met him he was in a bad, yet positive shape. In the place that makes Borstal look good he was being exploited and easily led down garden paths that he shouldn’t have been led down. I worked hard and spoke with people, the end result was that we got some more gardeners involved, good gardeners, the kind of gardeners who would, and did, help him. They helped him get new clothes to replace the rags he wore, little things like food and televis...