Judge blocks release of Manson follower’s tapes

Judge blocks release of Manson follower’s tapes

DALLAS (AP) — A Texas judge has blocked the release of decades-old tapes of conversations between a Charles Manson follower and his trial attorney while the matter is under appeal.

U.S. District Judge Richard A. Schell Wednesday granted a motion by Charles “Tex” Watson to stay a bankruptcy court ruling making the tapes available to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Watson is serving a life sentence for his role in the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

The tapes are part of a bankruptcy proceeding involving the law firm of Bill Boyd, who died in 2009.

The bankruptcy judge ordered that they be turned over to the LAPD in May, ruling that Watson waived attorney-client privilege when he allowed them to be cited in a book he co-authored in 1978.