No way. There wasn't even a chance of me believing that O. J. Simpson would one day go to trial on charges including kidnapping and armed robbery in a Las Vegas hotel room, apparently captured on audio tape. Of the many ways I imagined Act 3 of Mr. Simpson's turn-of-the-century Passion play to conclude, this one ain't even close!
Jeezemtally. Do I go home to cover the damn thing? Some time ago I reconciled with the god awfully ugly notion that shortly after my son calls the undertaker, my obituary, large or small, will have O. J. Simpson and/or 'Trial of the Century' somewhere in the first 3 sentences no matter what I do in the meantime.
With that given in mind, how do I not leave China, my mostly happy home for more than 5 years, and go back to my natural home to finish my alotted part in perhaps the 20th Century's most perfect murder case, in the sense that it is has every element any storyteller of any kind could ever want?
What's there to lose?
The changes in my life would be significant and many. Why jump back into that fire when I more or less escaped the conflagration alive and relatively sane the first time around? Why get in the skillet while also turning up the flame with information and research I never stopped gathering and doing through a bunch of years? That question is particularly problematical considering the fact that more than a few folks know something about its scope but very little about its produce.
Yet, no way can I come out of it any the better if I do. After Tom Lange's and Phil Vannater's book, Evidence Dismissed, written with Dan E. Moldea (Pocket Books 1997), came out with only one footnote in its entirety, one concerning William Benson Wasz, I worked a story I sensed was central to the case and worked it to the bone--thousands of hours and hundreds of 4-hour drives through California deserts. And all it got me was infamy and the loss of respect from many of my mainstream press colleagues. Who can blame them? I do not. Not after recently learning that I was wrong about a crucial, fundamental element of Bill's story.
Also, beginning with my turn upon the witness stand in the criminal trial and my unknown role in the back rooms of the civil trial--which I could not cover inside the Santa Monica Courthouse because I was on both side's witness list from the start and stayed there even though neither side planned to call me to the stand and knew it from the beginning of pre-trial discovery--I became a participant in the story I was reporting.
This became even more complex ethically and personally after I entered into a secret, ad hoc investigatory role with the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office and the Robbery/Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, on the Bill Wasz phenomenon. I worked with two of the less than a handful of truly informed folks on the Bundy murders who weren't too publicly attached to and tarnished by Marcia's pre-ordained crash and burn prosecution, two people of integrity, two people I respected each in their own fashion, one of whom would become a life-long best-friend no matter who's doing the shooting: Bert Luper and Bill Hodgman.
And later, after Time Magazine, with whom I had just shortly before worked splendidly on a major scoop in the Ennis Cosby murder, commissioned the story for the long-haul, I had the budget to bring aboard all of the investigative skills and resources of Lynda Larsen, of the Larsen AVR Group. Lynda and her associates took the work I and a small group of specialized researchers working with me had gathered over months and years and they then dug deeper in all directions into the hidden world of 'O. J. Simpson/Robert Kardashian & Company.'
To be more specific, whole trees-worth of paper were ground into the shaft where I had finally hit critical mass ('Follow the Money,' duh!): R & R + a multitude of brazenly bogus fictitious DBAs--at a time when such records were only available on paper via index cards and their all-important numbers in file boxes, which would eventually lead to the parsimonious release of individual sheaves of documents for on-premises review in the archival basements of courthouses throughout Southern California.
The activity uncovered had nothing to do with the Bill Wasz 'story' as such--albeit, a significant amount of it was discovered as eye-popping product of research generated from our need to check out Bill's claims about the activities of the people in his story.
What to do? Have a scotch, think about a down-right cross by the actress playing Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, and save the decision for another day? Yep, I think so.
O.J. Due in Vegas Court on 12 Charges
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: November 8, 2007
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- When O.J. Simpson returns to a courtroom to face armed robbery charges, the former football star will also be facing years of doubts and questions about his acquittal on murder charges more than a decade ago.
A Las Vegas justice of the peace will be asked to determine after a two-day hearing starting Thursday if there is enough evidence to take Simpson and two co-defendants to trial on charges that they robbed two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room.
In Simpson's mind, according to a close friend, the charges are rooted in Simpson being found not guilty in the 1994 slayings of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. "He believes he's being tried for that now," said Tom Scotto, 45, a North Miami Beach, Fla., auto body shop owner.
The men arrested in the Sept. 13 incident were brought together by Scotto's wedding.
Simpson and co-defendants Clarence "C.J." Stewart and Charles Ehrlich face 12 charges, including kidnapping, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy and coercion. A kidnapping conviction could result in a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. An armed robbery conviction could mean mandatory prison time.
"He's taking this serious," Scotto said. "It is serious."
No one disputes that Stewart, Ehrlich and former co-defendants Michael McClinton, Walter Alexander and Charles Cashmore went with Simpson and California collectibles broker Tom Riccio to meet memorabilia dealers Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong in a casino hotel room.
Simpson has maintained that he wanted to retrieve items he claimed had been stolen from him by a former agent, including the suit he wore the day he was acquitted in Los Angeles.
The case is likely to pivot on Simpson's contention that he didn't ask anyone to bring guns, that he didn't know anyone had guns and that no guns were displayed. Three of Simpson's co-defendants have pleaded guilty or agreed to do so and are expected to testify against him.
Cashmore, 40, a journeyman laborer, said McClinton displayed a gun.
