LAS VEGAS — A man who accompanied O.J. Simpson in a confrontation with two memorabilia dealers last year testified Monday that the former NFL star knew that at least one of their cohorts was armed, contradicting Simpson's contention that he was unaware weapons were used.
"Put the gun away," Charles B. Ehrlich quoted Simpson as saying to one of their associates during the Sept. 13, 2007, confrontation.
Shortly after the incident, Ehrlich said Simpson muttered to himself: "Why did I tell those guys to come along?"
Clark County Dist. Atty. David Roger asked whether Simpson said anything more about the guns after they had taken the memorabilia.
"He was in denial," said Ehrlich, whose gruff, stilted account was the first in the robbery-kidnap trial to directly contradict Simpson's version of events.
A friend of Simpson's for eight years, Ehrlich has pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for his testimony.
Ehrlich said he was to pose as a buyer in a ruse to retrieve some of Simpson's mementos from the dealers.
Simpson -- who faces a dozen charges -- maintains he was getting back plaques and family pictures stolen from his trophy room.
He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of the most serious charge, kidnapping.
"I [screwed] up," Simpson said after the confrontation, according to Ehrlich. "I'm going to need a bail bondsman."
Another key witness, auctioneer Thomas Riccio, set up the encounter between Simpson and the dealers and secretly recorded it. He gave a murkier account Monday of what happened in Room 1203 of the Palace Station Hotel & Casino.
Riccio said he never heard anyone say, "Put the gun down."
But the auctioneer -- who grew testy as questioning stretched into a third day -- waffled as to whether Simpson might have seen a weapon.
Though Simpson looked in the direction of the gunman at least once, "I didn't see him staring at a gun," Riccio testified.
Riccio recalled a string of phone calls after the incident in which Simpson told him "over and over again" that he never saw a gun.
"It seemed like he was trying to persuade me there were no guns," Riccio said.
Under questioning, Riccio acknowledged that he received more than $200,000 from news outlets interested in his story, including $15,000 from ABC News.
Riccio said the gossip site TMZ.com paid $150,000 for an audio recording of the incident and "Entertainment Tonight" gave him $25,000. Howard Stern's radio show paid him $20,000 through a sponsor, he said.
