LAS VEGAS — The police detective first dispatched to investigate reports of an armed robbery by O.J. Simpson at a down-market casino hotel testified Wednesday that his initial reaction was that it "couldn't be true."
"It didn't make sense," Det. Andy Caldwell told a jury at the former NFL star's robbery-kidnapping trial.
The detective said it took surveillance tape from the Palace Station Hotel & Casino to convince him that two sports memorabilia dealers alleging that Simpson and five associates had robbed them were credible. "I recognized Mr. Simpson instantly," he said of the grainy video.
Caldwell said the dealers, Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, immediately volunteered information about the central issue in the trial: the presence of weapons. "Their primary concern at the time was the fact that they had guns pointed at them," Caldwell said.
Simpson, 61, maintains he never saw a gun during the six-minute encounter. He and codefendant Clarence "C.J." Stewart, 54, each face a dozen charges. The most serious count -- kidnapping -- carries a potential life sentence.
Defense attorneys contend that Simpson, a Heisman Trophy winner at USC and an NFL Hall of Famer, was simply trying to retrieve stolen mementos, including pictures of his children and his late parents, on Sept. 13, 2007.
Caldwell, the first police witness to testify at the trial, walked jurors through a timeline of the investigation. He said his amazement that Simpson might be involved in a robbery in his district gave way to a decision to move cautiously against the high-profile suspect.
The detective said interviews with the two dealers and a third man, Thomas Riccio, who had arranged the meeting, suggested that Simpson had committed a crime, but officers held off taking action.
"If it was anybody else, we would have arrested him that night," Caldwell said. "Because of who he was, we wanted to make sure we had everything right." Simpson was arrested two days after the incident.
The detective also recounted dealings with Riccio, a colorful dealer expected to testify this week. He said Riccio never mentioned that he had surreptitiously recorded the incident, a fact detectives learned only when clips were posted on the website TMZ.
"If he had told you about it, would he have been able to make any money off of it?" prosecutor Christopher Owens asked. "No, sir, we would have seized it," Caldwell said.
