Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Someone
assisted in
hiding evidence,
Petrocelli says
The lawyer who won the civil case against O.J.
Simpson says he believes he now knows why the
former football star killed his ex-wife and
Ronald Goldman. In an interview with Stone
Phillips of �Dateline,� Daniel Petrocelli also says
he believes Simpson had help covering up
evidence of the crime.
�I GOT CONSUMED in trying to figure out, why did
O.J. Simpson kill Nicole? That just haunted
me,� Petrocelli
says. For Petrocelli, it was a consuming
mystery: What
could have made Simpson snap? What one event �
or
individual � could possibly have sent him into
a murderous
rage?
Petrocelli is convinced he found the
answer.
�When I asked his friends, �What do you
think made
him do it?� this is what they always told me,�
Petrocelli says.
And he says he heard it from more than just one
or two
people: �I heard it from four or five different
friends, close
friends now.�
The man who proved in the civil trial
that Simpson was
responsible for the murders of his ex-wife and
Goldman
details those allegations in his new book,
�Triumph of
Justice.� Weighing in at more than 600 pages,
the book is
chock full of inside information and some
never-before-heard anecdotes involving the key
players:
Like, how Kato Kaelin says he was treated
behind closed
doors by Marcia Clark. He was treated �like a
dog,�
Petrocelli maintains. �In fact he said she�d
throw a pretzel
across the table every time he got an answer
right.�
How Petrocelli says he could tell when
Simpson was lying
on the stand: �He starts hyperventilating,�
Petrocelli says.
�He starts breathing heavily, he has this
vacant look in his
eyes. He doesn�t make eye contact � sometime he
gets
bug-eyed.�
And a stunning claim about the night of the
murders:
Stone Phillips: �You believe there was
an accessory
after the fact in this murder?�
Petrocelli: �I�m positive of that.�
AN UNLIKELY SLEUTH
Petrocelli seems an unlikely sleuth. He
grew up in New
Jersey, the son of a railroad mechanic and a
factory worker.
And for years, the only bar he thought about
joining was the
bar-scene, as a jazz musician. Only after
college did he
trade his nightclub dreams for night school and
become a
lawyer.
He was a successful, but low-profile,
business attorney
when out-of-the-blue a client, troubled by the
not-guilty
verdict in the Simpson criminal trial, put him
in touch with
Fred Goldman.
Phillips: �You didn�t exactly know your
way around
the cop shop.�
Petrocelli: �No, no. I was the last
person in the world
who Fred should have hired.�
Phillips: �How many cases had you argued
start to
finish before a jury?�
Petrocelli: �One. I had had many trials
before judges
and arbitrators, but only one jury trial that
had gone from
beginning to end.�
And so, it was the rookie who had never
handled a
homicide against a hall-of-famer whose Dream
Team had
won the Super Bowl of murder trials.
Petrocelli had long been a fan of
Simpson�s. �Even
when I watched the verdict on television, there
was a part
of me still rooting for him, if you can believe
it or not,� he
says. �I was a huge fan of O.J. Simpson growing
up.�
And the rookie was caught flat-footed
when he first
met his boyhood idol before the civil trial.
�He stuck out his
hand and said, �Hi, I�m O.J.� He stuck out his
right hand
and I took it and I shook it,� Petrocelli
remembers. �And
then I immediately had this horribly empty
feeling in the pit
of my stomach because I realized that I had
just shook the
hand that held the knife that murdered the son
of my client.
And yet I couldn�t resist in that moment, I
couldn�t resist
taking his hand. I couldn�t resist the urge. He
had that
power over people.�
Was Petrocelli taken in?
�He had taken me in in that moment,�
Petrocelli says.
�And that�s how he takes everyone in.�
WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE?
Petrocelli says the antidote to
Simpson�s charm was
the overwhelming evidence against him.
Petrocelli says he
spent months in his war room meticulously
poring through
every shred. He questioned virtually everyone
connected to
the case. But the one thing he says he couldn�t
figure out
was �why?� Simpson had a history of spousal
abuse. But if
he committed the murders, as Petrocelli
believes, why
would his domestic violence have escalated to
killing the
mother of his children and Ron Goldman? And why
on that
particular night in June 1994?
Petrocelli answers that question by
pointing to a figure
on the periphery of this case he says is
actually at the very
heart of it.
�Every time I spoke to witnesses,
especially witnesses
close to Simpson, it always came back to Marcus
Allen,�
he says.
Phillips: �You believe Marcus Allen was
the final
straw.�
Petrocelli: �I believe that that was
what made Simpson
snap.�
Marcus Allen is the recently retired NFL
running back.
Though years apart, Allen seemed to follow in
Simpson�s
footsteps. Both won the Heisman Trophy at USC,
both
wore No. 32 in the NFL � breaking records and
more
than a few hearts with their movie-star looks.
They were
also good friends. In fact, back in the �80s,
Allen ushered at
the wedding of O.J. and Nicole.
But in the civil case, Simpson testified
that in 1993
Nicole made a tearful confession, telling him
she�d had an
affair with Allen and that he was still calling
her. Simpson
and Nicole were divorced at the time, but were
trying to get
back together. Simpson says Allen apologized.
Allen says
he told Simpson, �nothing happened� between
Allen and
Nicole.
Whatever was said, there seemed to be no
hard
feelings because just a few months later
Simpson offered his
Rockingham estate for the wedding when Allen
married his
wife Katherine.
But in his book, Petrocelli says the
story doesn�t end
there. �A few witnesses told me that Nicole had
admitted
that she was seeing Marcus again at the very
end when she
broke up with Simpson right before her murder.
One of
them was Faye Resnick.�
Author of two tell-all books on the
Simpson case,
Resnick was a close friend of Nicole�s. She�s
also had
problems with cocaine and credibility.
WAS ALLEN SEEING NICOLE SIMPSON?
Phillips: �Faye Resnick told you under
oath, �Nicole
started seeing Marcus Allen in the end right
before she died.
I was driving past Nicole�s house and I saw
Marcus� car
parked in front of her house. I called her and
asked if it was
his car and she said it was, reluctantly. I
told her I felt she
was setting herself up for murder.� �
Petrocelli: �Now Simpson, of course
would laugh at
that, saying Resnick is known to be a liar.�
Phillips: �This is an admitted drug user
who blew her
credibility by cashing in, posed for Playboy,
sold her story
rather than testifying.�
Petrocelli: �Well, she was Nicole�s
closest friend
during the last couple years of Nicole�s life
and she had the
inside view of what was going on and she saw
it... Her
problem is she damaged, indeed destroyed, her
credibility,
but she was still a gold mine for information.�
Phillips: �So despite her credibility
problems, what she
told you on the critical issues checked out?�
Petrocelli: �It checked out not only in
one or two
places, but maybe 10 or 11 places. In fact most
of what
Faye Resnick has to say about this case is
true.�
And Petrocelli is not relying on Resnick
alone. Cora
Fischman, another friend of Nicole�s, said
under oath that
Nicole told her she was seeing Allen as late as
May and
June 1994, the month she was killed. Fischman
added,
�Marcus calls Nicole when O.J. is out of town.�
But what Petrocelli says he found most
compelling is
how people who had been part of Simpson�s inner
circle
opened up to him.
Phillips: �Close friends of O.J.
Simpson?�
Petrocelli: �Close friends, friends that
he lived with,
played with, socialized with, cried to,
confided in.�
And he says they told him they believed
a triangle
involving Allen could have led to tragedy.
Petrocelli: �Now Simpson denied this to
the very end,
but of course he denied everything, so his
denial didn�t
mean anything. But his friends told me that he
would kill, he
would kill Nicole if she was seeing Marcus
Allen.�
Phillips: �He could tolerate others, but
not Marcus
Allen.�
Petrocelli: �He could not tolerate
Marcus Allen, that�s
right.�
Phillips: �That�s what his friends told
you?�
Petrocelli: �That�s what the friends
told me. Marcus
was still in the NFL, he was still running for
touchdowns.
Simpson had bad knees and Simpson had a lot of
envy
directed towards Marcus Allen.�
But if Simpson didn�t fly into a rage
when Nicole first
told him she�d had an affair with Allen in �93,
why would he
react violently to the same news a year later?
Petrocelli says
word of a second affair would have hit Simpson
much
harder because the first time around he won �
he got
Nicole back.
Petrocelli: �If there was a second
affair, he learned
about it in the circumstance of being rejected
by Nicole in
favor of Marcus Allen, that�s very different.�
A DEADLY GAME?
And very dangerous, according to
Petrocelli. In fact, he
believes Nicole was playing a deadly game �
using Allen
to hurt Simpson for all the hurt he�d caused
her.
Phillips: �Writing about Nicole and
Marcus Allen, (you
say) �I think she used him to lash out at
Simpson. She knew
having an affair with Allen would enrage
Simpson more than
anything else she could do.� �
Petrocelli: �At the very end Simpson and
Nicole were
at war with each other � and I think Marcus
Allen was the
way she struck back at him. We could never
prove that, by
the way. I could never prove to my satisfaction
that O.J.
Simpson knew that Marcus Allen was seeing
Nicole at the
very end and so for that reason I did not argue
that to the
jury and I did not put that evidence on, but I
believe that�s
what was happening.�
Allen�s lawyer says Nicole had a history
of using Allen
to make Simpson jealous. Did she fabricate a
story about
an affair that didn�t happen just to goad her
ex-husband?
Allen�s lawyer also suggests his client
couldn�t have been
seeing Nicole in the months before her murder
because he
was living in Kansas City, Mo., at that time.
But that
conflicts with Allen�s own statements under
oath that he was
residing in Los Angeles, and that he saw Nicole
just weeks
before her death.
But Allen also swore his relationship
with Nicole �
though close � was never sexual.
Petrocelli: �His denial is simply not
believable.�
Phillips: �Why do you believe Marcus
Allen is lying
about this?�
Petrocelli: �Marcus Allen needs to
protect himself, his
franchise, his life, his family, his
reputation, his name, his
income-generating ability and he will go to the
grave lying
about this.�
WHO HELPED WITH THE COVER-UP?
If that mystery is solved in
Petrocelli�s mind, another
one still haunts him. He�s sure Simpson
committed the
crime, and that someone helped him cover his
tracks � but
who?
Phillips: �Somebody went in the house at
Rockingham
and cleaned up after Simpson the night of the
murders?�
Petrocelli: �That�s the only way to
explain the
evidence that we have in this case. Evidence
like the alarm
that didn�t go off and the laundry that didn�t
get dry. Kato
Kaelin testified he set the alarm at Simpson�s
house the
night of the murders � but it never sounded
when police
entered the house with him and Simpson�s
daughter Arnelle
the next morning.�
And then there was a rarely seen police
video shot the
day after the murders of the laundry room in
Simpson�s
estate � showing a freshly washed load, and
according to
testimony some of it belonged to Arnelle.
Petrocelli says
Arnelle told him she always did her laundry
herself, but
hadn�t done a load in days.
Petrocelli: �So what�s her wet laundry
doing in the
laundry machine? Unless somebody put a load of
laundry in
there to cover up another load that had been
previously
done, maybe to wash some sweat suit outfit that
had blood
on it. Or something else. So I think somebody
went in there,
somebody cleaned up. Someone did a load of
laundry and
someone covered it up with another load of
laundry and
then someone left. And forgot to turn the alarm
back on.�
In the book, Petrocelli offers up three
names �
Simpson�s friend A.C. Cowlings, his secretary
Cathy Randa
and his daughter, Arnelle. He says all were
loyal to Simpson
and all were alone that night. But beyond that
he offers no
evidence.
Petrocelli: �I do not know who did it.
But somebody
did it.�
Phillips: �If you don�t know and you
can�t prove it, is
it fair to speculate about these three people?�
Petrocelli: �The evidence speaks for
itself.�
Phillips: �But you don�t have any
evidence saying it
was A.C. Cowlings or Cathy Randa or Arnelle
Simpson.�
Petrocelli: �I have no evidence that
says it�s any of
those people. I only know it had to be someone
extremely
loyal to O.J. Simpson.�
Contacted by �Dateline,� Cowlings had no
comment.
Attempts to reach Randa and Arnelle Simpson
were
unsuccessful.
In the end, Petrocelli says, he wrote
the book in part
because the civil case was not televised and he
thinks few
people know what really happened in that Santa
Monica,
Calif., courtroom.
But he also says he�s motivated by
disgust, that he�s
galled by Simpson�s smiles for the media.
Petrocelli: �To this day even though we
won the civil
trial and even though Simpson has been branded
as a killer,
for the rest of his life and for all of
eternity, we still have to
watch him preen to the media. And I would hope
that when
people read this book they will share the same
feelings of
disgust that I have and Fred Goldman has for
Simpson the
next time they see him smiling on TV or
laughing in a
microphone or waving from a golf course.�
Phillips: �You�ve been paid a lot of
money to write this
book. A lot of people will say, �He�s cashing
in.� �
Petrocelli: �Well. I hope they read the
book and
reserve judgment until they see what I have to
say. And it�s
an important part of our history and I think I
have given an
honest account.�
Contacted by �Dateline,� a spokesman for Allen
categorically denied there was ever an affair
between Allen
and Nicole Brown Simpson. He called it
�hogwash� and
said Petrocelli�s book is �playing fast and
loose with the
truth.�
As for Petrocelli�s speculation about an
accessory-after-the-fact, the three people he
names all told
�Dateline� Petrocelli is absolutely wrong.
By the way, �Dateline� also checked in
with Marcia
Clark about that story that she treated Kato
Kaelin like a
dog � flipping him a pretzel for right answers.
She laughed
it off, saying it never happened.
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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