Fast Fade

Case of the vanishing tapes

In death as in life, Vicki Morgan showed a tawdry penchant for causing discomfort in high places. Last year the sometime model, then 29, filed a $5 million lawsuit against Ronald Reagan's multi-millionaire friend and adviser Alfred Bloomingdale, contending that he had promised to support her in return for having been his mistress for twelve years. She lost the suit, Bloomingdale died of cancer, and a mortified White House may have thought it had heard the last of her. But last week, after Morgan had been found bludgeoned to death in her North Hollywood apartment and her roommate, Marvin Pancoast, 33, had confessed to the crime, her memory made new, still seamier headlines.

Beverly Hills Lawyer Robert Steinberg purported to have three videotape recordings of "sadomasochistic [sexual] acts" involving Morgan and Bloomingdale, as well as a Congressman, two Reagan-appointed officials of less than Cabinet rank, two businessmen and several other women, all unidentified. Steinberg, who has no official role in the Morgan case but who has a reputation as a frustrated self-promoter, said a woman identifying herself as a friend of Morgan's killer had appeared in his office with some 40 minutes of videotape in a Gucci bag.

The next day, after Los Angeles police and a deputy district attorney told Steinberg not to destroy the tapes, he called the D.A. back to say the tapes had been stolen from his office. Twenty-four hours after the theft supposedly occurred, Larry Flynt, publisher of the raunchy Hustler magazine, said he had made a deal to buy the tapes for $1 million but that Steinberg reneged. Steinberg denied any deal.

At week's end the tapes as well as a number of Steinberg's other claims remained elusive, if not illusory. He said that his wife called the Justice Department, but she disclaimed any knowledge of it. On Friday, Beverly Hills police formally recommended that the district attorney charge Steinberg with filing a false theft report. Even before the police finding, Chief Deputy District Attorney James Bascue sounded angry: "I think it's about time we get Mr. Steinberg out of the press conference and into a court of law." Steinberg has been ordered to appear in Los Angeles municipal court next Monday with the tapes. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.