Bill Pavelic Online, Detective Bill Pavelic Blog

The Houston Chronicle
July 29, 1994, Friday, 2 STAR Edition

LOS ANGELES — Encouraged by the promise of a large reward or the chance to contribute to a historic investigation, 250,000 callers have flooded a newly created hot line with tips about the O.J. Simpson murder case, while similarly besieged police have designated a full-time “”clue chaser” to run down the leads coming to them.

“It’s beyond belief,” Simpson’s lead attorney, Robert L. Shapiro, said of the hot line deluge. He said calls have become “so overwhelming” that the operators have had to install a backup recording system to keep up with the crush.

Tipsters have included private investigators with clues based largely on news reports, amateur detectives with theories implicating other would-be suspects and people claiming to have witnessed the events surrounding the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Ronald Lyle Goldman, 25, on June 12 outside her apartment in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.

Although some of the tips are seemingly credible, many appear to be the products of overactive imaginations. One Maryland woman has called repeatedly to tell of dreams in which she sees another killer. To her frustration, Simpson’s camp has not gotten back to her.

“We’re hearing from every psycho and every crazy person,” said Bill Pavelic, an investigative consultant for the Simpson team. “But if I get one call in a hundred that’s a good lead, it’s worth it. ”

Investigators on both sides of the nationally publicized probe are chasing down each of their leads, reluctant to pass up information that could prove important.

The pace of tips has convinced Los Angeles Police Department officials that Simpson’s camp may be fueling the fires in part to occupy detectives who could be building a case against Simpson, 47.

Any tip that is not checked out could be used against the prosecution at trial. Simpson’s camp has made clear its intention to attack the thoroughness and competence of the investigation into their client.

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
July 28, 1994, Thursday, HOME FINAL EDITION

LOS ANGELES - For the first time in the O.J. Simpson case, a victim’s rela-tive has branded Mr. Simpson a murderer, in a lawsuit accusing him of “will-fully, wantonly and maliciously” killing Ronald Goldman.

In a wrongful-death lawsuit disclosed Wednesday, Mr. Goldman’s mother, Sharon Rufo, seeks unspecified damages for the loss of her 25-year-old son’s companion-ship and support.

Ms. Rufo, who lives in St. Louis, had not seen her son in the five years be-fore his death. She is divorced from Mr. Goldman’s father, Fred.

And at a court hearing Wednesday, Judge Lance Ito resolved a last-minute snag in testing of blood samples set to begin Thursday.

Prosecutors hope the evidence will link Mr. Simpson to the June 12 stabbings of Mr. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Mr. Goldman, a friend of hers.

Officials at Cellmark Diagnostics, the Germantown, Md., laboratory hired by the prosecution to conduct the delicate tests, had objected to Judge Ito’s order allowing defense scientists to cut blood samples for possible independent test-ing. Judge Ito will decide later whether the defense may use 10 percent of the samples for those tests.

Cellmark officials had written to the judge explaining that the lab preferred to use its own technicians. But Judge Ito reaffirmed a ruling handed down Mon-day, saying the cuts by defense experts could proceed as scheduled.

Meanwhile, encouraged by the promise of a huge reward or the chance to con-tribute to a historic investigation, 250,000 callers have flooded a newly cre-ated hotline with tips about the O.J. Simpson murder case.

Similarly besieged police have designated a full-time “clue chaser” to run down the leads coming to them.

“It’s beyond belief,” Mr. Simpson’s lead defense attorney, Robert Shapiro told The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. He said calls have become “so over-whelming” that the operators have had to install a special backup recording sys-tem to keep up with the crush.

Tipsters have included private investigators with clues based largely on news reports, amateur detectives with theories implicating other would-be suspects and people claiming to have witnessed the events surrounding the grisly murders.

Although some of the tips are seemingly credible, many appear to be the prod-ucts of overactive imaginations. One Maryland woman has called repeatedly to tell of dreams in which she sees another killer. To her frustration, Mr. Simp-son’s camp has not gotten back to her.

“We’re hearing from every psycho and every crazy person,” said Bill Pavelic, an investigative consultant working with the Simpson team. “But if I get one call in a hundred that’s a good lead, it’s worth it.”

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Los Angeles Times

April 8, 1993, Thursday, Home Edition

judge delays trial in denny case until july;

COURTS: ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANTS IN THE BEATING OF A TRUCKER SAY THEY NEED MORE TIME TO PREPARE. THE POSTPONEMENT REMOVES THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE PROCEEDINGS WILL OVERLAP FEDERAL TRIAL OF FOUR LAPD OFFICERS.

BYLINE: By EDWARD J. BOYER, TIMES STAFF WRITER

SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 1; Column 2; Metro Desk

LENGTH: 1088 words

The trial of three defendants in the Reginald O. Denny beating case was post-poned Wednesday until July, removing the possibility that it will overlap with the federal trial of four officers accused of violating Rodney G. King’s civil rights.

Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk delayed the trial until July 7 or 8 after defense attorneys argued that they need more time to prepare. Prosecutors did not oppose the postponement, acknowledging that to go to trial with defense attorneys on the record saying they are unprepared would be grounds for reversal on appeal.

Defendants Damian Monroe Williams and Henry Keith Watson readily agreed to Ouderkirk’s 13-week delay. But Antoine Miller answered, “Certainly not,” when the judge asked him if he agreed to put the trial off that long. Miller’s attor-ney, James R. Gillen, said after the hearing that Miller had conferred with his mother and is now reconsidering.

The trial had been scheduled to begin Monday, with jury selection set to start Wednesday. Closing arguments in the King beating trial will begin today, and that case is expected to go to the jury Friday afternoon.

While pushing the Denny beating trial back 13 weeks, Ouderkirk denied a mo-tion by the defendants to delay a potentially volatile pretrial hearing that be-gan Wednesday and that they see as important to their defense.

Defense attorney Edi M. O. Faal said during his opening statement at the hearing that the defendants will attempt to prove they were victims of discrimi-natory prosecution by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He al-leged that prosecutors routinely file more serious charges against blacks than against whites arrested under similar circumstances.

Williams and Miller, both 20, and Watson, 28, were originally charged with aggravated mayhem, torture and attempted murder, among other felonies. Those charges carry life sentences. Torture charges have been dropped against all de-fendants. Only Williams is now charged with aggravated mayhem — the intentional infliction of permanent disfigurement or disability. All three still face at-tempted murder charges.

“I certainly have the sense that they have identified something that is a real issue,” Southwestern University School of Law professor Isabelle Gunning said of the discriminatory prosecution motion. “When white defendants come up, I think prosecutors tend to see more humanness. Those who are poor, black and brown are going to get the hardest overcharging.”

In legal papers and comments to reporters, Faal, who represents Williams, has made it clear that he intends to contrast the charges filed against the Denny defendants with those brought against the four Los Angeles police officers ac-cused of beating King.

Outside court Wednesday, Faal said he plans to call Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, a defendant in the federal civil rights trial, to testify during the hearing, which is expected to last several days. “I want to know if he intended to crip-ple Rodney King — break his bones,” Faal said. “If Koon intended to do so, why was he not charged with aggravated mayhem?”

Although evidence presented to the district attorney should have indicated “a specific intent to maim and permanently disable” King, prosecutors chose not to try the officers for attempted murder or aggravated mayhem. Instead, he said, the officers were charged with assault with a deadly weapon, a charge carrying a sentence of five to 10 years.

The conduct of the officers toward King is “very similar to the alleged con-duct of the men accused of beating Mr. Denny,” Faal said in court. He said he believes prosecutors were fully aware that Officer Laurence M. Powell intended to inflict a “sadistic beating” — an element of torture — on King, yet he was not charged with torture.

Faal said he has subpoenaed former Dist. Attys. Ira Reiner and John K. Van de Kamp because they will be unable to justify the “disparity of treatment” of the officers in the King beating and the men charged in the Denny assault.

Faal also plans to call Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry White, who prosecuted the officers in state court, former Los Angeles Police Detective Bill Pavelic and attorney Stephen Yagman, who has frequently sued law enforcement agencies over abuses by police.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore, one of two prosecutors in the Denny beating case, argued that the defense seems to be attempting to retry the four officers. “I don’t feel that the comparison between the two cases is relevant to discrimi-natory prosecution,” she said.

UCLA criminal law professor Peter Arenella agreed, criticizing the analogy between the King and Denny cases. He said in an interview that the comparison “ignores the fact that the officers were justified in using those batons for the first 30 seconds. There is no justification possible for the Denny defendants hitting Denny or anybody else with bricks or fists for any amount of time.”

Arenella said that “since we live in a racist society, it comes as no sur-prise that that racism will and does infect the criminal justice system. That is true in general, and one can point to all too many examples.
“Having said that, I do not believe that the prosecution decision to bring charges as serious as attempted murder reflect an obvious example of that ra-cism.”

Prosecutors commonly bring the most serious charges possible to enhance their plea bargaining positions later on, Arenella said, but prosecutors do not “nec-essarily believe conviction on those charges are necessary to do justice.”

USC law professor Charles Weisselberg noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has said that “while prosecutors generally have broad discretion on who and how to prosecute, they can’t base that on race. The defense has to show that others in a similar situation have not been prosecuted or were prosecuted differently. They have to show that prosecution is based on an impermissible motive. That’s the hard part.”

In recent weeks, there had been wide speculation that the Denny case might end in plea bargains. The speculation was fueled, in part, by Judge Ouderkirk’s suggestion that the parties explore that option.

During Wednesday’s proceedings, in his request for a delay, defense attorney Gillen said Ouderkirk’s “public urging through the media of plea bargaining” had prejudiced the potential juror pool against the defendants.

The judge, however, called that suggestion “a glaring inaccuracy” and de-scribed his own comments as “a suggestion that all the parties get together and talk.”

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH