• Counsel For Milford Suspect Says Charges To Be Dropped

Counsel For Milford Suspect Says Charges To Be Dropped

LOS ANGELES, Mar. 24 – An attorney for a woman charged with murder-conspiracy in the Tate-LaBianca slayings says the charges “will be dismissed either by grant of immunity or by a jury trial.”

Gary Fleischman, who dropped a requested change of venue for Linda Kasabian, 20, of Milford, N.H., declined to say whether an agreement had been reached with the prosecution to have her testify against five other defendants for immunity.

But he told newsmen Monday he and Ronald Goldman, another attorney for Mrs. Kasabian, “are not actively preparing our defense against charges of murder.”

During her brief court appearance, Mrs. Kasabian waived her right to appear at future court proceedings except for the trial April 20.

The move Fleischman said was “partly convenience and partly a security matter.” He said she is being lodged apart from three other women defendants in the case, Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins.

Mrs. Kasabian, Miss Krenwinkel and Miss Atkins, along with Charles Manson and Charles Watson, are charged in the deaths last Aug. 9 of actress Sharon Tate and four others and along with Miss Van Houten, in the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Leno LaBianca the following night.

A subpoena filed by Miss Krenwinkel’s attorney, deputy public defender Paul Fitzgerald, was quashed by Superior Court Judge Malcolm Lucas, who said the demands it made on the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner were too broad.

Fitzgerald had sought to subpoena copies of the newspaper which contained stories relating to the Tate-LaBianca slayings.

Lucas ruled that such material was readily available in the public library.

In Texas meanwhile, District Court Judge David Brown sustained a state motion to speed up an extradition appeal by Watson. Brown made the ruling at McKinney after Dist. Atty. Tom Ryan alleged Watson’s attorney was trying to “delay or postpone the pending trial, or to change the forum of mode of trial.”

Watson had 90 days from the time he was ordered extradited to California to file an appeal but Brown ordered the filing be expedited.

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