LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A famed criminalist working for Phil Spector’s lawyers picked up evidence overlooked by police, two former members of the defense team said on Thursday at a hearing into accusations that a piece of the victim’s fingernail has disappeared.

The testimony by former Spector lawyer Sara Caplan and private investigator Stan White bolsters claims by prosecutors that the pioneering rock producer’s defense suppressed possibly damning evidence against him.

Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler has convened a special hearing into accusations of evidence tampering in the murder case surrounding actress Lana Clarkson’s death at Spector’s home outside Los Angeles on February 3, 2003.

Fidler could impose harsh sanctions on the defense if he concludes that a member of the team withheld or manipulated evidence. Jurors have been given the week off.

Caplan took the witness stand one day after a former law clerk on the defense team told the court that he saw her pick up a small white object in Spector’s foyer, not far from where Clarkson had been shot, on the day after the shooting.

Caplan, who no longer works for Spector, denied having done so, saying such a claim was “absurd” and adding, “I would never touch an object at an alleged crime scene, ever.”

But under cross-examination by prosecutor Alan Jackson, Caplan surprised the court by saying that she had pointed out an object resembling a fingernail to famed forensic scientist Henry Lee, who placed it into a vial.

She was followed on the witness stand by Stan White, a private investigator who was hired on the day after the shooting by Robert Shapiro, then Spector’s lead attorney.

White told the court that he was in the foyer when he heard Lee exclaim that he had found a small piece of “tissue,” and walked over to examine the item in the criminalist’s hand.

“I said it looked like a fingernail and he said ‘you’re crazy’,” White said. “I said, ‘Dr. Lee, you need glasses and then I turned and went back” to what I was doing.

White said he was nearly certain that the object was a chunk of fingernail, which appeared to have a mark left by a bullet and a spot of blood or red nail polish.

The former homicide detective said the bullet mark and condition of the nail suggested defensive wounds, testimony which would support the prosecution case. He said he did not know what became of the item.

Lee’s report of his crime scene investigation makes no mention of him finding such a piece of evidence and notes that he collected only small carpet fibers. It was not clear if he would be called to testify at the hearing, which was scheduled to resume on Friday.