Music Blogs

Incarcerated former music producer Phil Spector has been assigned to a "sensitive needs facility" at California's Corcoran prison, which he was reportedly moved to on Monday. Spector is, of course, in jail after being found guilty of murdering actress Lana Clarkson at his Beverly Hills home in 2003. He maintains his innocence and plans to appeal. The Corcoran prison has nearly 7000 inmates, but Spector will not come into contact with many of them having been assigned to the "sensitive needs facility". Experts say prisoners are normally put into such a facility for their own protection, normally because they have dropped out of a gang that has a presence inside. One prison officer says Spector's notoriety was probably behind the decision to exclude him from most other inmates. He will not have a cellmate in the zone where he resides. Since his conviction Spector had been held at North Kern State Prison. As previously reported, the producer's young wife Rachelle Spector had been critical of her husband's treatment there, saying he had been treated "like a dog". She told the Associated Press on Tuesday that she was "relieved" Spector had now been moved to a new facility. In related news, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections told the AP she didn't believe Spector's experience at the original prison was actually as his wife had described. Some of the mistreatment Rachelle Spector alleged had happened would violate prison policies and laws so, the spokeswoman said, were not likely to have occurred, though she admitted any formal complaints about mistreatment would be investigated.