22 h 54 m, 12 jun 1994 ano - Limo driver sees a man walk across Simpson's driveway

Descrição:

Limo driver Allan Park sees a man wearing dark clothes, about 6-feet tall and 200 pounds, walk across the driveway of the Simpson residence.

Limousine Driver Deals a Blow to Simpson
By David Margolick March 29, 1995

"The limousine driver who picked up O. J. Simpson on the evening of June 12 testified today that in three drives up and down Mr. Simpson's block of North Rockingham Avenue, at a time when prosecutors say he killed two people and Mr. Simpson insists he was home, the driver never saw Mr. Simpson's white Ford Bronco parked on the street.

In a crucial assault on Mr. Simpson's alibi, the driver, Allan Park, told the Deputy District Attorney, Marcia Clark, that he initially located Mr. Simpson's house by following the house numbers painted on the curb, making him peculiarly attentive to what was parked there. But neither when he first arrived at 10:22 nor in two subsequent trips by in the next 17 minutes did he see Mr. Simpson's car.

Prosecutors have charged that sometime around 10:15 P.M., Mr. Simpson murdered his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald L. Goldman, then hopped into his Bronco and returned to his home, two miles away. Mr. Simpson insists that he was at home at the time of the killings and that the Bronco never moved. He has produced one witness -- the maid next door, Rosa Lopez -- to corroborate his account.

But Mrs. Lopez's recollections were so hazy and haphazard that defense lawyers may never show her videotaped testimony to the jury. By contrast, the jury got to hear Mr. Park, a calm and clean-cut man who stressed that precise timing is a limousine driver's stock in trade, who consulted his watch and the dashboard clock often, and whose recollections are buttressed by records of cellular phone calls he made to his boss when Mr. Simpson, who had asked for a limousine at 10:45, appeared not to be home.

Mr. Park went on to testify that at 10:56 P.M., after buzzing several times and getting no response, he saw a black person, approximately 6 feet tall, weighing 200 pounds and wearing dark clothing, walking briskly toward, then entering the largely unlit house.

Some lights quickly went on, Mr. Park continued, and when he buzzed again 30 seconds later, he said, there was finally a voice at the other end. It was Mr. Simpson's, a voice he recognized from football broadcasts. "He told me that he overslept, that he just got out of the shower, and he'd be down in a minute," Mr. Park told Ms. Clark.

Ms. Clark then asked Mr. Park whether the shadowy figure she repeatedly described as "the 6-foot, 200-pound person dressed in all dark clothing" looked like Mr. Simpson -- Mr. Park said he could not tell -- or appeared to be the same height and weight. Yes, the witness said.

"How long after you saw the 6-foot, 200-pound person go into the house did you speak to Mr. Simpson?" she asked.

"It had to be anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute," Mr. Park said.

The prosecutor then asked Mr. Simpson to stand. The defendant, smiling cheerily and straightening his suit coat, obliged.

"Can you tell us if that appears to be the size of the person you saw enter the front door at Rockingham?" she asked.

"Yes, around the size," Mr. Park replied.

Mr. Park did not testify that he saw the Bronco when he pulled out of Mr. Simpson's driveway, but did say that when he looked to the right, he recalled that something had blocked his view.

On cross-examination, Mr. Simpson's chief trial lawyer, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., noted that Mr. Park had not said anything similar to either the grand jury or at a preliminary hearing.

The witness also told Mr. Cochran that he did not hear or see any cars stop in front of Mr. Simpson's house that night; that he had been more concerned about serving Mr. Simpson well than with who was parked where, and that he had not noticed any cuts on Mr. Simpson's left finger. Mr. Cochran also got Mr. Park to imply that far from displaying the agitation of a killer, Mr. Simpson had the peace of mind to tip the driver generously at the airport and give a fan an autograph.

"This was a great witness," Mr. Cochran said after court.

At least four separate times, Ms. Clark asked Mr. Park whether he had seen the Bronco on his second go-round at 10:39 P.M. Each time, he said he had not. Nor, he said, did he see it when he put the cumbersome stretch limousine into reverse and headed back to the Ashford gate. There, he rang Mr. Simpson's bell again, and again there was no response. Only around 11 P.M. did Mr. Simpson answer the bell. Shortly thereafter, he appeared, wearing stonewashed jeans, a white polo shirt and a black coat.

By the door, Mr. Park said, were two duffle bags. Mr. Simpson himself carried a folding garment bag -- a Gucci bag, he said; a Louis Vuitton, Mr. Cochran said.

Corroborating the testimony of Mr. Simpson's house guest, Brian (Kato) Kaelin, Mr. Park said that at one point he saw Mr. Simpson walk down the driveway and, spurning Mr. Kaelin's offer of help, pick up another smaller black bag himself.

"He said: 'No, no. That's O.K. I'll get it. I'll get it,' " Mr. Park recalled.

Prosecutors have suggested that the bag -- which they say has never been retrieved -- may have contained the murder weapon and the blood-soaked clothes Mr. Simpson had worn during the killings. "Did you ever see that small dark bag after the defendant picked it up off the driveway at Rockingham again?" Ms. Clark then asked.

"Not that I remember," he recalled.

As the two men headed to the airport, Mr. Park said, Mr. Simpson repeated two or three times how hot he was -- even though, the driver said it had been "our normal June-gloom foggy night," with temperatures of 68 to 70 degrees. Mr. Simpson complained of forgetting something and of the perils of dressing in a hurry. He also leaned over in the back seat, as if checking his bags.

Mr. Park was the day's third witness. Preceding him were Mr. Kaelin, who concluded his testimony after spending parts of five days on the stand, and Rachel Ferrara, Mr. Kaelin's friend and former girlfriend.

Mr. Kaelin was called by the prosecution. But continuing to play the part of hostile lawyer to a hostile witness, Ms. Clark questioned Mr. Kaelin icily about his honesty and independence, suggesting he had lived off Mr. Simpson's largesse and, with his generally benign recollections of the Simpsons' marriage, was now paying back his benefactor.

Mr. Kaelin, once a struggling actor whose bit parts fell onto the cutting room floor, was asked who had approached him for his story since last June. "Everyone," he replied. Mr. Kaelin said that since the killings last June, he had made $60,000, much of that from the syndicated television program "A Current Affair," and had turned down offers for nearly a million dollars more. But he said he had no plans to write a book.

"As of today, no way," he said emphatically.

Ms. Clark noted that Mr. Kaelin had retained an entertainment lawyer. "Sounds like he's betting you're going to make a lot of money, Mr. Kaelin," she said. By living rent-free at Mr. Simpson's home for six months, she noted, Mr. Kaelin saved himself $6,000. "And with all of that, you don't feel obligated to him?" she asked him.

"Can you explain 'obligated'?" he responded.

She hinted, too, that by socializing with Mr. Kaelin so often on June 12 -- on four separate occasions, more than Mr. Simpson had ever before -- Mr. Simpson had been building himself an alibi.

Following Mr. Kaelin to the stand was Ms. Ferrara, an aspiring actress who passed the ample waiting time in the courthouse reading the Stanislavsky acting manual. She had been speaking to Mr. Kaelin over the telephone on the night of June 12, when Mr. Kaelin said he heard three loud, jarring thumps on the rear wall of his guest house. She placed the time at 10:40, five minutes earlier than Mr. Kaelin, and characterized the noise as a single bang.

She said she was no longer dating Mr. Kaelin. But gently cross-examined by Mr. Cochran, she stood by her friend. "He's very moral," she said.

In a bench conference on Monday, Ms. Clark disclosed more about a previously undisclosed argument prosecutors say Mr. Simpson had with his wife on the afternoon of June 12 -- one which, they will presumably argue, further stoked the rage that built in him throughout the day and culminated in murder eight hours later.

Phone records show, Ms. Clark told Judge Ito, that Mr. Simpson called his former wife from the Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, where he had been playing cards, at 2:18 P.M. The two spoke for four minutes, she said, and a witness at the club told prosecutors that Mr. Simpson was "very angry and very upset" as he spoke.

The witness estimated that the call took place around 4 P.M. but acknowledged she was not sure of the time, and Ms. Clark said phone records suggested she was mistaken. "That clearly establishes that there was a heated conversation between himself and Nicole that afternoon," Ms. Clark said.

In response, Mr. Shapiro said that his client had called to arrange for the dance recital later that evening.

The transcript of Monday's bench conferences released today also disclosed that even Mr. Simpson's love for his two youngest children is in dispute. In it Ms. Clark told Judge Ito that in a diary that Mrs. Simpson kept, she had complained that her former husband had regularly missed scheduled visits with his children and returned them earlier than he was supposed to.

"I don't think there is any question that the defendant loves his children," Judge Ito told the lawyers.

"Really?" Ms. Clark replied. "We don't see eye to eye on that one at all."

"Well, aren't we going far afield?" the Judge continued. "Loving the children is one thing. Killing the mom is something else."

There was also additional evidence of how bitter relations have grown between Ms. Clark and Mr. Shapiro. Near the end of the day, Judge Ito asked Mr. Shapiro to estimate how much longer he intended to question Mr. Kaelin, and the defense lawyer said he could "not give a good faith representation as to time." That prompted Ms. Clark to snipe, "Mr. Shapiro has never probably given a good faith representation."

"Counsel, we really don't need those kind of snide remarks," Judge Ito said. But the sparring continued. Mr. Shapiro said he was "personally offended" by Ms. Clark's comments, particularly since they would eventually become public, and demanded sanctions anew.

"Mr. Shapiro has been offensive toward me, rude, making uncalled for, derogatory remarks since June the 13th," Ms. Clark countered. "I would just let the court know counsel has given a great deal, greater than he's received in this respect."

"Well, the fact that that may be history doesn't mean that it needs to continue," Judge Ito said. And with Mr. Cochran handling Tuesday's witnesses, the parties had stumbled into a cease-fire.

A correction was made on March 30, 1995: An article yesterday about the O. J. Simpson trial referred incorrectly in some copies to the length of time a limousine driver said Mr. Simpson appeared to be away from home. The witness, Allan Park, said he was sure that for 17 minutes -- not 27 -- he did not see Mr. Simpson's Ford Bronco.

A version of this article appears in print on March 29, 1995, Section A, Page 18 of the National edition with the headline: Limousine Driver Deals a Blow to Simpson. "


Sourced from:
The New York Times

Https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/29/us/limousine-driver-deals-a-blow-to-simpson.html

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