Simpson Skirts Murder Queries in TV Interview

Eighteen months after he was grilled by the Los Angeles Police Department about a grim double homicide in Brentwood, O.J. Simpson discussed the case publicly for the first time Wednesday, but he deflected gentle questions about the murders and finished the 60-minute session without addressing the case’s lingering mysteries.

“I did not commit these murders,” Simpson said at the interview’s outset. “I could not kill anyone.”

And as the interview drew to a close, Simpson, his voice trembling as he gazed into the camera, again insisted that he could not have murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman, whose slashed and stabbed bodies were found outside her Brentwood condominium just after midnight on June 13, 1994.

To those who still believe he is responsible, Simpson declared: “If you don’t like me, leave me alone. I’m not bothering you.”

Questioned by reporter Ed Gordon, Simpson portrayed himself as the victim of dishonest police officers--he singled out Police Chief Willie L. Williams and retired Chief Daryl F. Gates for personal criticism. And Simpson said the continuing public distrust of him is driven by unfair media and by women’s groups that have made him “their whipping boy.”

Wednesday’s interview, broadcast live on the Black Entertainment Network, marked Simpson’s most expansive public comments about the murder case. Although Simpson decided not to testify in last year’s trial, it took a racially mixed jury less than four hours to acquit him of the killings.

He has had a far harder time persuading a skeptical public of his innocence. Polls immediately after the verdicts showed that most people believed that he committed the murders, though the surveys also revealed a sharp split in the reactions of blacks and whites, with whites much more likely to see Simpson as guilty and blacks more inclined to accept the verdicts.

Confronted several times about the lingering perceptions of his guilt, Simpson said he was dumbfounded. “I don’t believe the polls,” Simpson said. “White America, I can tell you. . . . Anywhere I’ve gone, I’ve been welcome.”

But at the San Francisco Saloon on Pico Boulevard, most patrons ignored Simpson’s interview altogether. The one person who paid attention was unimpressed.

“More lies, more lies,” Sam Sepasi, 44, of Woodland Hills muttered repeatedly. “I was just curious what he was going to say. I thought maybe I could get some facts. But I was mistaken.”

A few miles away, at the bar of the Jackie Robinson American Legion Post on Slauson Avenue in the Crenshaw district, about two dozen people briefly debated whether to watch the Simpson interview or the Los Angeles Lakers-Boston Celtics game. The Simpson interview partisans won. Impressions were mixed afterward.

“Me personally, I’m still confused,” said Al Brewer, 65. “Looking at O.J. and seeing him, I have my doubts. He has the look of someone who’s guilty. He got away with something.”

But in a comment typical of many interviewed Wednesday night, Don Harris, 43, said: “The man went through the system. He played by the rules. He didn’t miss a day in court. And now the public should just leave him alone.”

Little Talk of Evidence

From near the opening moments of the interview, Simpson made it clear that there were topics that he would not discuss--both to protect himself in his ongoing civil cases and to preserve the value of an upcoming videotaped interview with him. Because of that, the session barely touched on the evidence that resulted in his arrest for murder and that his lawyers spent nine months dismantling during the trial.

Simpson did accuse his former friend, Ronald Shipp, of lying on the witness stand when he testified that Simpson told him that he dreamed about killing his ex-wife. And Simpson acknowledged that he was wrong to hit Nicole Simpson during a 1989 altercation, but said prosecution allegations that he had stalked and intimidated her later were “totally b.s.”

Near the end of the interview, the reporter asked for the first time about the physical evidence that linked Simpson to the killings. Simpson, accompanied off-camera by lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., laughed off the question, saying viewers would have to wait for his videotape.

“You can find out . . . for $29.95,” Simpson said, chuckling and shaking his head.

Dressed in a white, open-collared shirt, cream-colored jacket and gray vest, Simpson spoke softly in his deep baritone voice throughout most of the hourlong session, delayed for seven minutes because he had arrived late. Only twice did his temper seem to flare, once in acknowledging that he felt both sympathy and anger for the families of the two victims and then later when he contrasted his plight to that of former Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, who was convicted of violating Rodney G. King’s civil rights and whose supporters contributed more than $4 million to his legal defense and family.

“A guy like Stacey Koon, who supervised the beating of a human being, that guy spent easier time than I spent and had $4 million waiting for him when he got out of jail,” Simpson fumed, his voice tightening. “So don’t tell me about mourning and suffering. I sat in a cell by myself. They wouldn’t let me speak to another prisoner. When I walked down the halls, they made all the other prisoners turn their backs to me. I mourn. And I’m still mourning. For the rest of my life, I’ll mourn. But I should have the right to go outside. I enjoy golf. I should have the right to play golf.”

Throughout the interview, Simpson returned over and over to that leitmotif, his love of golf. When asked what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, Simpson responded: “What I’d like to do is raise my kids, spend as much time as I can with my family, especially my mom, who’s here tonight. And play golf.”

Although the interview was eagerly anticipated for days, many of the trial’s principals decided to pass on watching. Police detectives involved in the case said they missed the interview, as did both victims’ families. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti was attending a conference. Through a spokeswoman, he declined to comment.

Fred and Patti Goldman, the father and stepmother of the murdered young man, intentionally avoided the interview. During last year’s trial, Fred Goldman furiously branded Simpson as a murdering coward, and outside the law offices of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, where the deposition is taking place, he warned viewers Wednesday that Simpson’s famous charm could fade under tough grilling.

“Watch at your own risk,” Goldman said of the televised session.

In the interview, Simpson was asked whether he felt anger toward Goldman for his public tirades throughout the trial and since.

“I have compassion for Fred Goldman for losing a son,” Simpson replied with a sigh. “I lost a daughter, and now I lost what I feel is, I’ve stated before, my most favorite person on this earth, Nicole.”

Still, Simpson added: “There’s a side of me that’s a little pissed at Fred Goldman and the Browns. . . . I know if I was in their shoes, I wouldn’t let the LAPD, Gil Garcetti and these people off the hook.”

He was particularly critical of the Browns, though he said he loved Lou and Juditha Brown, his former parents-in-law.

“The rest of the family,” he continued, “I think what they’ve done and what I know for a fact they’ve done has been very self-serving. I don’t think they’ve been true to the memory of Nicole. . . . I know in some cases that pictures were sold to the rags, unflattering pictures, by one of her sisters.”

Gloria Allred, a lawyer who represents the family, responded by deriding Simpson’s television appearance and by urging viewers not to buy the videotape in which he addresses evidentiary issues in the case.

“I’m disgusted that he would ask for $29.95 for us to hear where he was on the night of the murders,” she said.

In the days immediately after the verdicts, Simpson offered to give an interview to NBC, but he backed out at the last minute in the face of mounting protests against the network. On Wednesday, Simpson described that as virtually the only time that his entire legal team agreed on anything, and said he had reluctantly yielded to their advice that he cancel.

But those cases are still pending, and Simpson went ahead with Wednesday’s session anyway. This time, he agreed to the interview with Black Entertainment Network, a 16-year-old cable operation that says it reaches 97% of all African American households in the country that are hooked up to cable television.

Jefferi K. Lee, president of BET Networks, said the cable company began negotiating for an interview with Simpson as soon as he was charged with murder. Last week, Gordon spoke again with Cochran, and the agreement for an interview with Simpson was tentatively struck. Lee then spoke to Simpson twice Friday, and the former football star said he would sit down for the interview. Simpson was not paid for the interview, the network said.

“We got along fine,” Lee said. “He was very forthcoming.”

The location of the interview was a closely guarded secret, with even people close to Simpson kept in the dark about it until the last minute. It took place at a Burbank studio, and when the interview ended, Gordon and Simpson shook hands, a network executive said.

The interview aired against a backdrop of Simpson’s continuing legal problems: He faces three wrongful death claims--one filed by Goldman’s mother, one by his father and one by the estate of Simpson’s ex-wife. Since Monday, Simpson has been undergoing a deposition in those cases, fielding questions from the opposing lawyers and avoiding the throng of reporters who have gathered each day outside the office.

Sworn Deposition

According to the lawyers, Simpson’s sworn deposition has contradicted some aspects of the presentation by his defense attorneys during the criminal trial.

“There are differences between what he said publicly and what he testified to today,” regarding the events of June 12, said Michael A. Brewer, the lawyer for Goldman’s mother, Sharon Rufo. “As every day is completed, I am more satisfied with the plaintiffs’ case in this matter.”

One area explored Wednesday was the question of how Simpson received cuts to his left hand, particularly a deep one on his middle finger. John Q. Kelly, the lawyer for Fred Goldman, said Simpson earlier had provided an explanation that was consistent with his contention that he had sustained the cut in a Chicago hotel room, but Kelly said that in Wednesday’s testimony, the plaintiffs learned new details about the cut.

Simpson told police on the day after the killings that he believed that he had cut himself at home while searching for a cellular telephone. But witnesses called by the defense during the trial said they had not seen any cuts on his hands hours after the murders.

“There are inconsistencies with respect to what has been said publicly relative to these cuts, and what Mr. Simpson [has said]. That is my view,” said Brewer. “Others are going to have to look at the evidence to make their own assessments. . . . It’s interesting testimony.”

Before the televised interview, the lawyers had said they looked forward to Simpson’s account in the hopes that he might provide more fodder for their questions. At the end of Wednesday evening’s session, however, legal analysts said it did not appear likely to affect the civil case.

“He said nothing of substance,” said Loyola law professor Laurie Levenson, “so how could it hurt his civil case?”

Wednesday’s deposition session also was shadowed by the refusal of Simpson and his lawyers to allow Kim Goldman, the murdered man’s sister, to attend.

“I’m all of 100 pounds,” Kim Goldman said as she arrived for the deposition. “What can I do?”

Simpson’s attorneys contend that she is not entitled to attend the deposition because she is not formally a party to the lawsuit. Under California law, the only people who can file wrongful death lawsuits in a case where there is no will are those who would inherit if there was a will. In such situations, parents take precedence over siblings.

Simpson’s attorneys declined comment on why Simpson refused to allow Kim Goldman in the deposition room. But she had her own view.

“Because he knows we think he murdered my brother,” she said. “Would you face me?”

Times staff writers Duke Helfand, Miles Corwin and John L. Mitchell contributed to this article.