In his first sworn account of the events surrounding the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman, O.J. Simpson has alleged to lawyers for the victims' families and estates that his ex-wife not only abused drugs but also concocted stories of domestic violence in an abortive attempt to abrogate their prenuptial agreement.
During a wide-ranging and as-yet-incomplete deposition taken over five days late last month, Simpson underwent a grueling, detailed, and at times contentious interrogation at the hands of Daniel M. Petrocelli, lead attorney for Ronald L. Goldman's father, Fred, in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against the former football star.
The 1,534-page transcript of their exchange, which occurred behind closed doors, has been obtained by The Times. The explanations and accounts offered by Simpson while under oath contain a number of previously unknown facts and strikingly different accounts of some of the case's most controversial aspects. These include Simpson's flight from arrest and the many instances of alleged domestic violence, which Simpson testified did not occur.
Simpson also offered versions of events that occurred on the night of the killings and the next day that flatly contradict testimony offered during the double murder trial that ended in his acquittal.
Among the more significant testimony elicited from Simpson so far:
* He made a phone call to his ex-wife less than two hours before police and prosecutors contend that the murders were committed. The existence of that call was never disclosed at his trial. According to Simpson, he asked to speak with his daughter Sydney, whose dance recital he had attended earlier in the day. Simpson testified he avoided any conversation with Nicole Simpson during the call. During the criminal trial, Simpson's guest house tenant, Brian "Kato" Kaelin, testified that Simpson was "upset" and "agitated" when he returned from the recital because Nicole had limited his contact with their daughter.
* The ex-football star said he was unable to explain the cuts observed on his hands after the murders and, in fact, contradicted a statement he gave LAPD investigators the day after the murders concerning the origin of some of them. In a statement given to homicide Dets. Tom Lange and Philip L. Vannatter, which was never used by prosecutors in court, Simpson said he cut his hand while rushing to leave his Brentwood home and again the next day, when he broke a glass in his Chicago hotel room while in distress over learning of his ex-wife's death. In the deposition, Simpson testified that he cut his hand when he picked up a shard of broken glass he saw on the floor of his hotel bathroom, and that he does not know how the water glass was broken.
* Simpson gave an account of the night of the murders that differs in key details from testimony offered by Kaelin concerning the period of time between his return from the dance recital and his departure for Los Angeles International Airport to catch a flight to Chicago.
* Simpson flatly denied ever telling limousine driver Allan Park, who drove him to the airport, that he overslept and failed to hear Park when he initially rang the buzzer at Simpson's Rockingham estate. Park testified twice under oath that that was the explanation the former football star offered for his tardiness on the night of the murders.
* Simpson denied receiving a telephone message from Paula Barbieri saying that she was breaking off their relationship. During her deposition, Barbieri testified that Simpson left three messages for her; their full content has yet to be disclosed. Simpson offered no explanation as to why, if he felt his relationship with Barbieri was ongoing, he left a message for another woman that evening saying he was now totally "free" of other involvements.
Combative Witness
These accounts, which were not only transcribed but also videotaped in the West Los Angeles offices of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp--the law firm representing Fred Goldman--seem to show Simpson as a self-possessed, sometimes combative witness who frequently disregards the advice of his own chief counsel, Robert C. Baker.
At one point Baker accused his client of wanting "to give monologues against his lawyer's advice," to which the Brown family's attorney John Q. Kelly responded: "I especially want to hear things against his lawyer's advice."
Elsewhere in the interrogation, Simpson gave a far more expansive account of his criminal defense lawyers' claim that he passed the time waiting to leave for the airport on the night of the murders by chipping golf balls on his front lawn. Despite the fact that activity was carried out in the dark, Simpson testified he left "no divots" on his lawn and, in fact, none were subsequently discovered by police investigators, who did find golf balls, according to the transcripts.
