Peterson Ex-Girlfriend Will Tell Her Story
The massage therapist who revealed she had a relationship with Scott Peterson said Monday she is prepared to testify at his trial on charges of killing his pregnant wife and their unborn child.
Amber Frey, 28, also said she has been hounded by news media and tabloids offering her money for her story ever since she came forward about a month after Laci Peterson disappeared.
She said she has hired celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred to fend off the offers, which she does not intend to accept, and to represent her as a witness.
"In addition to being a witness," Allred told a news conference, "Amber is also a victim of Scott's deception. Victims are entitled to attorneys, as are witnesses."
Frey has said she did not know Scott Peterson was married when they first met.
Allred says they are committed to protecting the integrity of the prosecution and will not allow Frey's testimony to be contaminated by offers of money for her story.
Frey "wants to be sure that the criminal justice system works in the way that it is intended to work. And it can affect a witness's testimony if a witness has received payment for that testimony," said Allred.
Scott Peterson was arrested last month after the bodies of his wife, Laci, and a baby washed ashore from San Francisco Bay.
Meanwhile, divers searched the bay for the fourth day in a row Monday for more evidence, but investigators released no information about the results.
The badly decomposed remains of Peterson and her unborn son Conner, who was about six weeks from his due date, were discovered several days and about a mile apart by passers-by in mid-April. Published reports said that not all of Laci Peterson's remains were found, and that they may have been wrapped in plastic and held down by heavy material.
"I think that they feel like they need to find something — either parts of Laci Peterson's body that still haven't been recovered or some other sort of evidence the police say links Scott Peterson to the crime," says CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. "Either they need it badly to make their case that this is murder, or they just want it because they know it will help their case once it gets to trial."
The bodies surfaced several miles north of where Peterson's husband, Scott, said he went sturgeon fishing on Christmas Eve day — the last day Laci Peterson was seen alive.
Modesto Police arrested Scott Peterson last month and prosecutors have charged him with double murder. He has pleaded innocent but remains in Stanislaus County Jail without bail, facing a death penalty prosecution.
"If prosecutors are going to make a circumstantial case against Scott Peterson, if they're going to give jurors a theory of the case, they're really going to have to explain how Laci Peterson died," says Cohen. If not, they leave the defense a broad opening to question the prosecution case against Scott.
Asked about speculation that a satanic cult may somehow be involved in the case, Cohen observes that "if this is going to be a defense theory it has to be based on fact."
"You can't raise an argument or issue like this about some reasonable basis in fact for it," says Cohen, who adds that he considers Peterson's attorney, Mark Geragos, to be a solid lawyer.
If, on the other hand, it's the police raising the cult issue, "police folks follow leads like this all the time," he said. "They follow them either because they think something good is going to happen, or they follow them because they want to rule them out."