Doubts over OJ tapes

2008-09-18 14:03

Las Vegas - An FBI analyst testified on Wednesday that he could not rule out that recordings presented at the robbery and kidnapping trial of former American football star OJ Simpson were doctored.

In the digital recordings, Simpson is heard barking orders during an alleged armed robbery of memorabilia dealer Bruce Fromong in a hotel room in Las Vegas on September 13, 2007.

More than 700 sports-related mementos were seized in the incident, many depicting Simpson. The former football great and actor says the photos, trophies and footballs were stolen from him following the 1994 murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson.

The recordings were made by Simpson's friend Thomas Riccio, who set up a sting operation to reclaim the items. They are key pieces of evidence to show an alleged conspiracy between Simpson and five men who accompanied him on the raid.

"With all of your expertise and all of the equipment available to you with the federal government, you cannot tell us as you sit there today whether that evidence was manipulated?" Simpson's lawyer Yale Galanter asked FBI analyst Ken Marr.

"It might, sir," Marr said.

Simpson and friend Clarence Stewart have been charged with 12 counts of robbery, conspiracy, kidnapping and assault that could result in life prison sentences if they are convicted.

The other four men who accompanied Simpson have pleaded guilty and agreed to co-operate with prosecutors. This is the third day of a trial that is expected to last a month.

Outside the presence of the jury, Stewart's attorney argued that the recording machine and its audio tape should not be admitted into evidence because an eight-day period elapsed between the tapes being made and when police obtained them.

During that time period Riccio sold some of the recordings to celebrity website TMZ.

But Judge Jackie Glass disagreed and allowed the recordings into evidence.

Also on Wednesday, Las Vegas metropolitan police detective Steven Caldwell testified that Simpson was given preferential treatment during investigation of the case because of his fame.

Caldwell said he was summoned to the hotel room shortly after the robbery. He learned Simpson was a suspect, but he was not immediately arrested.

"If it was anyone else, we would've arrested him that night," Caldwell testified.

"Because of who he was, we wanted to go above and beyond what we would with other individuals."

Simpson was put under surveillance and arrested three days later.

Simpson was found not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in a 1995 double-homicide trial that attracted a media frenzy.

But a civil jury in 1997 found him liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5m to the families of the deceased.

- AFP