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"This has to stop," Judge Alfred A. Delucchi told Modesto' s Capt. Joe Aja. "Tell the chief that he's going to have to sit on this ... or there's going to be trouble."
During cross-examination last Thursday, defense attorney Mark Geragos got Modesto Detective Al Brocchini to admit that he had omitted a witness report that might have been favorable to Scott Peterson.
On Friday, however, Modesto Sgt. Ed Steele told the Associated Press that the witness had been omitted from Bocchini's report because the report had already been included in a report by another detective. "It's Geragos's spin," Steele said.
Peterson, 31, stands accused of murdering wife Laci and their unborn son on or around Dec. 24, 2002, and then dumping the remains into San Francisco Bay. The former fertilizer salesman, who has pleaded not guilty to all counts, claims he left his pregnant wife at home to go on a solo fishing trip and returned to an empty house.
Delucchi has been hard-pressed to stop leaks related to the case. Juror Justin Falconer, 28, was dismissed from the panel last week after admitting that he had discussed media coverage of the case with his girlfriend.
During Monday's proceedings, after re-reading the terms of the gag order, Delucchi returned the trial to Geragos's cross examination of Brocchini, with Geragos pushing the contention that the Modesto police mishandled, even bungled, the Laci Peterson investigation.
Geragos focused on a lack of police follow-up in investigations of other possible suspects, particularly those who might fit the description of the "dark-skinned" men seen by the Peterson house shortly before she disappeared. In particular, Geragos grilled the detective about a case involving an attempted kidnapping of a 15-year-old girl by a "Pacific Islander" male in Tracy, Calif., shortly before Dec. 24.
Geragos also asked about a burglary of the Peterson house that occurred a few weeks after the alleged murder.
