O.J., C.J., Spencer, Goldie and a couple of Charlies. For three days, their nicknames have been heard in obscenity-laced audio tapes and sometimes dramatic testimony about how O.J. Simpson and armed men confronted two sports memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas trying to sell items the aging football star claimed were his.
A preliminary hearing was expected to end Wednesday with justice of the peace Joe M. Bonaventure deciding whether Simpson, Clarence (C.J.) Stewart and Charles (Charlie) Ehrlich should go to trial on 12 charges, including kidnapping and armed robbery.
O.J. Simpson sits in a courtroom during his preliminary hearing in Las Vegas on Thursday.
(John Locher/Associated Press)
A conviction on the kidnapping count could result in a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. An armed robbery conviction could mean mandatory prison time.
Chief Las Vegas justice of the peace Douglas Smith, who is not involved in the Simpson case, said the question before Bonaventure is: "Was a crime committed, and did this person probably commit the crime? That's all that needs to be proved."
Michael (Spencer) McClinton testified Tuesday that Simpson asked him to bring guns and told him to use them to intimidate memorabilia dealers Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong when the group entered a Las Vegas casino hotel room.
"He said, 'Show them your weapon and look menacing,'" McClinton said.
Clark County District Attorney David Roger asked McClinton whether he was paraphrasing.
"He said that," McClinton replied. "There's no doubt in my mind. He said that."
Minutes later, Simpson lawyer Gabriel Grasso tried to show that McClinton, 49, changed his story after becoming the third co-defendant to accept a plea deal and agree to testify against Simpson.
In 85 pages of transcript of a voluntary statement he gave police on Oct. 15, Grasso asked, did McClinton ever tell investigators that Simpson told him to bring a gun?
"No," McClinton responded. "I guess I didn't."
Simpson, 60, has maintained that no guns were displayed during the confrontation, that he never asked anyone to bring guns and that he did not know anyone had guns. He has said he intended only to retrieve items that had been stolen from him by a former agent, including the suit he wore the day he was acquitted of murder in 1995 in the slayings of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
Scheduled to testify Wednesday is Beardsley, 45, who is in custody at the Clark County jail on a California parole violation. He is expected to tell how he and Fromong agreed to meet an unnamed buyer for memorabilia.
Simpson's golfing buddy Walter (Goldie) Alexander testified Tuesday that Simpson instructed McClinton to draw his weapon before the group entered the room at the Palace Station hotel-casino.
Alexander said he kept a weapon that McClinton gave him tucked into the waistband of his suit, but as soon as he saw McClinton waving his weapon and shouting orders at the memorabilia dealers he realized he was taking part in an armed robbery.
Later, defence lawyer Yale Galanter elicited from Alexander that he offered at one point to slant his testimony in Simpson's favour if he was paid.
"I really felt that he was set up," Alexander said. "So I felt like I could lean toward that angle rather than telling the exact truth."
Alexander said he was never paid.
"So truth got left at the door because your testimony is for sale?" Galanter asked.
"I told the truth," the witness said glumly.
Charles Cashmore, who also struck a deal with prosecutors, testified against Simpson last week.
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