Lawyers for Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva arrived at Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday as allegations surfaced that Mel Gibson harmed then 2-month-old daughter with Oksana, Lucia, and also waived a gun in his former girlfriend’s face.
Their lawyers are in court for an emergency ex parte custody hearing over daughter Lucia. While the hearing is closed to the media, it’s believed Grigorieva’s lawyers will ask the judge to strip Gibson of custody, using the recently released tapes as evidence.
Earlier on Thursday, the latest recording released by Radar Online, which contained a voice said to be Gibson’s, seems to be about a debate over finances. The voice blames Grigorieva for forcing the caller to sell paintings and his Lakers box seats due to a hefty investment in her singing career.
“The box is gone because of you,” the voice said to be Gibson is heard saying on the recording.
“Not because of me, because you have to feed an army,” Grigorieva answered.
“I spent more than five million dollars on you,” Gibson reportedly said.
Also on Thursday, Access Hollywood has learned that at least portions of the recordings were made on February 18 and 19. Allegedly, Gibson did not know he was being recorded. The court ordered all recordings to be turned over to the judge, while Grigorieva was ordered not to provide copies or transcripts of the recordings to any person or entity. Gibson wanted Grigorieva’s iPhone and laptop turned over to the court, but this request was denied on July 1. There was a hearing on July 8 to determine if the recordings could be used in their custody battle; the result of that hearing is unknown.
On Thursday’s newly released tape, Grigorieva seems to imply that her 12-year-old son Alexander, or “Sasha,” may have witnessed Gibson’s alleged rage.
Radar Online founder David Perel claimed to Access on Thursday photographic evidence exists that both Grigorieva and daughter Lucia were victims of the alleged rage.
“Today we reported that Oksana has a photo of her baby with a bruise on it,” Perel told Access. “The bruise is on the baby’s chin. From what we understand, she was holding the baby when he struck her in the face on January 6. We know there are photographs that show her teeth knocked out.”
Perel claimed that during the same argument, Gibson allegedly pulled a gun on Grigorieva as she attempted to make an escape.
“She ran outside, he went into his bedroom, he came back with a handgun,” Perel explained. “He waived the gun in her face, and said, ‘I’ll show you how to get out of here,’ which she interpreted as a clear death threat.”
While reps for Gibson have not denied that it is his voice on the recordings, his defense team reportedly may claim the audio was doctored. NBC’s “Today” show examined the recordings with a forensic voice analyst, Paul Ginsberg, who disagrees that the tapes were doctored.
“Does it sound to you like this was edited at all?” NBC’s Jeff Rossen asked Ginsberg in a taped segment which aired on “Today” on Thursday morning.
“No, his voice is continuous in tone and her voice is continuous in tone,” Ginsberg said. “There’s no evidence of any editing or erasures.”
However, Arlo West, CEO of Creative Forensic Services, said on “GMA” that he believed the recordings had been altered.
“The audio files were most certainly edited intentionally and the forensic terminology for this, is tampering,” West said. “The edits that I found would have been done post-recording and are clearly done to redact dialog — which means to intentionally remove words. I can tell there are gaps and edits in several ways by using waveform analysis and zero crossing analysis. These are most certainly digital recordings so there is no tape involved.”
As of this morning, Gibson’s rep has not commented to Access Hollywood on the situation.
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