LAS VEGAS, Nevada-- O.J. Simpson's angry voice rang out in a Las Vegas courtroom Monday as a prosecutor opened the fallen gridiron great's armed robbery trial by playing an audiotape of the hotel room confrontation at the heart of the case.
The profanity-laced tirade, on one of several audiotapes that will be played for jury, opened the trial of Simpson and co-defendant Clarence "C.J." Stewart.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Chris Owens told jurors the audiotape reveals "the two faces of Orental James Simpson." One is his amiable public persona. The other is the angry, ranting, profane man Owens says is heard on the tape.
The prosector pointed out that the key players in the case were used to taping their business dealings.
As his opening statement continued, Owens used several audiotapes to illustrate his points. Defense attorneys had objected his using the tapes during opening statements, but Judge Jackie Glass overruled them.
Earlier, Simpson, perhaps the most notorious criminal defendant in modern history, smiled and gave a thumb's up as he entered the Clark County Regional Justice Center.
The customary clutch of eccentric onlookers for all things O.J. seemed to evaporate in the 100-degree Las Vegas heat. The cast of characters dwindled to a wheelchair-bound man in a sequined Santa Claus outfit and single, loquacious demonstrator with a bullhorn.
Media interest in Simpson also seems to have waned. The sprawling Media village that sprung up for Simpson's preliminary hearing looked to be two thirds smaller, with some parking spaces available.
Witnesses say Simpson and five men burst into a Las Vegas hotel room brandishing guns on September 13, 2007.
They allegedly made off with pillowcases containing O.J. Simpson memorabilia, signed Pete Rose baseballs and Joe Montana lithographs.
Simpson's defense attorneys are expected to argue that he was merely trying to recover property that had been taken from him years earlier.
A jury of nine women and three men promised they could disregard Simpson's past and solely consider the evidence against the 61-year-old football hero and his 54-year-old co-defendant, Clarence "C.J." Stewart.
Simpson and Stewart are charged with a dozen offenses stemming from an alleged sports memorabilia heist a year ago. The charges include conspiracy to commit a crime, robbery, assault and kidnapping with a deadly weapon. If convicted of the most serious charges, both could face life in prison.
Four former co-defendants cut plea deals with Clark County prosecutors and could be called to testify.
With its Las Vegas casino setting, colorful cast of characters and dialogue spiced with salty language, the alleged heist seems at first to be a low-budget parody of "Oceans 11."
But it was the introduction of guns -- and threats -- that prosecutors say elevated what Simpson portrays as a tense encounter among former business partners to an armed robbery and kidnapping.
The kidnapping charges refer to claims from memorabilia dealers Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong that they were lured to the hotel under false pretenses and threatened with guns to stay in the room while Simpson and his men gathered the memorabilia.
Police were called to Room 1203 at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino shortly before 8 p.m. on September 13, 2007.
Just hours later -- after midnight on September 14 -- Simpson welcomed detectives into his room at the Palms Casino Resort with handshakes. The former Hall-of-Famer thanked the officers for coming to hear his side of the story and said he was simply trying to recover property that had been stolen from him.
"Why are they not in trouble?" he asked about the alleged victims, Beardsley and Fromong, according to police reports filed in the case.
He also told police the meeting "wasn't about ... being physical," that the others present would back up his story, and that the memorabilia dealers told him, "Take it," and "We cool, Juice."
Former co-defendants Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton testified at a preliminary hearing last year that Simpson instructed them to "look menacing" before they entered the hotel room. Once inside, they said, Simpson accused the dealers of stealing his property and grabbed a cell phone from Fromong.
For allegedly snatching the cell phone, along with Beardsley's hat and sunglasses, the men are charged with two counts of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon.
In addition to the testimony from the former co-defendants, prosecutors plan to introduce audiotaped conversations between Simpson and some of his cohorts that were recorded surreptitiously before, during, and after the alleged heist.
Prosecutors say the tapes will show that the armed confrontation was planned in detail -- including the use of guns.
For Simpson, the tapes are not only a crucial obstacle for his lawyers to overcome, but a symbol of what it means to be the most visible criminal defendant in recent times.
"I think O.J. walks around with a big target on his back, and he may have drawn it there himself," said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor who has closely watched Simpson's legal travails since he was arrested in the 1994 slayings of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her waiter friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman.
A jury in Los Angeles, California, found Simpson not guilty of murder for their deaths in a criminal trial. In a subsequent wrongful-death civil trial, a jury found Simpson liable for the death of Goldman and committing battery against his ex-wife.
"The state of being O.J. is constantly to be in the limelight, and people are always going to be waiting for him to make a mistake," Levenson said.
The case that could put Simpson behind bars for the rest of his life began with a phone call from sports memorabilia dealer Thomas Riccio, a convicted felon who made the rounds on network news shows immediately after the hotel room fracas.
Riccio, who was not charged in the case, testified at the preliminary hearing that he made a habit of taping such transactions, so he didn't think twice about recording Simpson when he asked for help retrieving what he claimed was his property.
Simpson has told police he had no idea the people with him were armed. But former co-defendant Alexander has testified that Simpson asked him if he could get "heat" in case things went wrong.
Another former co-defendant, Michael McClinton, also said Simpson asked him to bring guns and told him his role would be to act as "security."
For Stewart, Simpson's remaining co-defendant, the Riccio tapes are crucial to establishing his claim that he was not involved in the alleged plan to bring guns to the meeting.
Prosecutors in the case face their own challenges
At least three of the four co-defendants who cut deals to testify have criminal records.
"The victims are not sympathetic and the act that others involved taped O.J. in the room suggests they were looking to make money off O.J.'s presence," said CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
"The true owner of the merchandise is going to be very hard to determine, so it's very far from a straightforward armed robbery and kidnapping case," he added.
As this trial begins, the specter lingers of Simpson's earlier trials.
Judge Jackie Glass has sought to keep references to those cases out of this trial, and members of the jury were questioned closely about their ability to set aside their opinions.
While some may be watching to see if this case ends differently from the murder trial, Levenson doubts that the level of fascination will be the same.
"I watched every minute of the criminal case and every moment of the civil case. Those were trials of the century," she said. "This is a bad sequel."
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