George Kreisberg, longtime LA courts journalist

Thursday December 19, 2002

LOS ANGELES (AP) George Kreisberg, a journalist who covered celebrity court stories at the downtown civil courthouse for almost 30 years, has died. He was 62.

Kreisberg was found dead at his home Friday. He had diabetes and heart problems.

``George is what we used to call in the old days a hell of a leg man,'' said Sandi Gibbons, now a spokeswoman for the district attorney, who hired Kreisberg as an overnight writer for City News Service in the mid-1970s.

``He did not get the glory, he did not get the bylines, but he got the stories,'' said friend and fellow courts writer Sherry Overend.

``Everybody knew George, he had an enormous range of contacts,'' said veteran Associated Press Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch, who met Kreisberg in the 1970s. ``In a way, George was born too late. He should have been part of the rough and tumble newspaper worlds of the 1930s and '40s He loved covering the story. He was very good at getting information, and he just knew everybody.''

Kreisberg attended Emerson College in Boston, did graduate studies at Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y., and worked at NBC-TV before being hired at City News Service in Los Angeles.

In recent years, he provided information on celebrity court cases to Entertainment Weekly and the Star and Globe tabloids as well as The Associated Press.

He is survived by two daughters, Jodi Sears of Albuquerque and Randi Freedman of Tulsa, Okla. A memorial is planned for Saturday.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)