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Amber Frey May Be Cross-Examined Today

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 August 2004, 06:00 CDT

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Defense attorneys for Scott Peterson say they expect to begin their cross-examination of Amber Frey this afternoon.

On audio tapes secretly recorded by Frey, Scott Peterson endures harsh questioning from his one-time mistress and denies any involvement in his wife's disappearance.

"I'm not an evil guy," Peterson said on tapes played in court Monday. "I lied to you... but I'm not an evil person."

Judge Alfred A. Delucchi said last week that the tapes would continue to be used through Tuesday morning.

On Monday, jurors heard Frey pressing Peterson on how she could ever trust him.

"I can only hope that that's a possibility," Peterson tells her. "We can have a relationship."

Monday was the fourth day jurors listened to the recordings, taped by Frey at the request of police in the days after the pregnant Laci Peterson vanished.

Prosecutors allege Peterson killed his wife in their Modesto home on or around Dec. 24, 2002, then drove to the San Francisco Bay and dumped her weighted body from a small boat he had purchased weeks earlier. The badly decomposed remains of Laci Peterson and the couple's fetus washed ashore from the bay in April 2003, not far from where Peterson said he launched a solo fishing trip the day she vanished.

His defense attorneys claim he was framed after the real killer learned of his widely publicized alibi.

Authorities hope to show jurors that Peterson's motive for killing his wife and their unborn child was to be with Frey.

Frey has testified that she called police after discovering her lover was not only married, but suspected in the disappearance of his pregnant wife. Officers asked her to record Peterson's calls.

At one point, as Frey presses him about hiding the affair, it appears as if Peterson accuses her of being involved in Laci's disappearance.

"You know, Scott, when people find out (about the affair), and they will, no one will think your behavior is innocent," Frey says.

"I had nothing to do with this ... and I just, you know, I hope that you ... are not ... involved to any degree," Peterson replies.

"How ... back up! ... Back up to that statement," Frey says angrily.

Peterson backtracks.

"You know, what I mean by that is obviously you're not involved ... but I mean I don't want ... you to have any repercussions from people," Peterson says.

Frey took the witness stand twice Monday morning simply to affirm that the tapes were made by her. She remained in court the rest of the time.

Like a detective, Frey pressed Peterson for answers on the tapes, interrogating him about what he and Laci had done the day before she vanished.

Peterson said they ate pizza and watched a movie, "The Rookie," before going to sleep. Frey asked him if they slept in the same bed.

"Amber, please don't ask ... I can't ... I can't tell you these things," Peterson says. "I can't tell you everything right now."

Peterson maintains he told Laci about his affair with Frey after the pair's first date.

"Are you telling me Laci was OK with me?" Frey asks.

"Yeah," Peterson says.

"That's really hard for me to believe," Frey replies, before calling him a "pathological liar."

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