Jurors View Newfound Simpson Shoe Photos

Jurors in the O.J. Simpson civil trial Monday pored over 30 just-discovered photos that appear to show Simpson wearing the same type of Bruno Magli shoes that he has denied owning--the type that tracked size-12 bloody footprints by the bodies of his ex-wife and her friend.

The photos were purportedly taken by freelancer E.J. Flammer at a football game Sept. 26, 1993, nine months before the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. If genuine, they could corroborate a single full-length snapshot that freelance photographer Harry Scull took at that same football game in Buffalo, N.Y.

Simpson and his attorneys agree that the shoes in the Scull photo are Bruno Maglis--but they insist that the snapshot is a phony.

Flammer’s pictures, taken the same day, show Simpson’s shoes from the side and the top, in clear detail. They appear to match the shoes in the Scull photo. The rest of Simpson’s outfit matches as well; he’s wearing the same blue blazer, white shirt and baggy gray pants.

The Bruno Magli shoes linked to the crime scene are a particularly rare and pricey style. FBI Agent William Bodziak, a footprint expert, said only about 299 pairs of the shoes were ever sold in size 12. They sell for about $160 a pair.

During his pretrial deposition, Simpson testified under oath that he would never own such “ugly” shoes. Later during his deposition, he acknowledged that he has owned “similar” shoes, but said he did not recognize the pair in Scull’s photo.

When he took the witness stand this fall, Simpson emphatically insisted that the photo “is a fraud,” because he remembered that at the Sept. 26, 1993, football game, “I wasn’t wearing Bruno Magli shoes.” Pointing to the Scull photo, Simpson testified: “Those shoes are not my shoes.”

“You’re sure?” plaintiff attorney Daniel M. Petrocelli asked.

“Pretty sure,” Simpson responded.

“There is some doubt?” Petrocelli continued.

Simpson’s answer: “No.”

Petrocelli cited that testimony in arguing Monday that he should be allowed to show jurors Flammer’s series of photos to impeach Simpson’s credibility.

“If you’re going to go in front of the jury and make those kind of representations, you have to suffer the risk that you may be caught red-handed [in a lie]--and that’s what happened here,” he said in a hearing outside the jury’s presence.

The defense countered that it was unfair for Petrocelli to spring the photos on them at the last minute. Defense attorney Daniel Leonard pleaded with the judge to at least halt the trial for two weeks so Simpson’s attorneys could track down evidence showing that the photos are “either irrelevant or fake.”

But Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki ruled that the plaintiffs could show them to jurors immediately.

When Leonard protested, “It’s a total sandbag, Your Honor,” Fujisaki responded: “That seems to be what impeachment is all about.”

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Plaintiffs’ attorneys, grinning gleefully, looked as though they were about to break into high-fives as they showed jurors the photos, which Flammer said he discovered in his archives over Christmas. One by one, jurors studied all 30 photos on two contact sheets, plus four glossy prints and three enlargements of Simpson’s lower legs, which showed the shoes in crisp detail.

Simpson did not examine the photos, which the defense saw for the first time only minutes before they were introduced to jurors. He did, however, scribble notes throughout the plaintiffs’ presentation. Simpson, who may return to the witness stand as early as Friday, did not attend the afternoon court session.

No photo expert for either side has scrutinized the 30 snapshots, which Flammer is shopping to tabloids. Flammer, a part-time photographer who works in his family’s printing business, has agreed to testify in the plaintiffs’ rebuttal case.

To further authenticate the photos, the plaintiffs hope to prove that both photographers sent out copies of their Simpson shots--shoes and all--months before the murders, before anyone could possibly know the importance of the Bruno Maglis. Petrocelli plans to call as a rebuttal witness an editor at Pro Football magazine who received a copy of Scull’s photo long before the murders. He also hopes to present a Buffalo Bills newsletter from the fall of 1993, which features a grainy version of one of Flammer’s pictures on the cover.

Simpson’s lawyers hinted Monday at one line of defense. They argued, both to the judge and the jury, that it seemed highly suspicious that 30 incriminating photos should mysteriously emerge at the tail end of the civil trial.

The defense’s expert photo witness, Robert Groden, took a quick look at the Flammer photos on Monday. He insisted that despite the new evidence, he remained convinced “to an overwhelming degree of certainty” that Scull’s snapshot from the same football game was phony.

Groden acknowledged on cross-examination that if Flammer’s 30 photos were authenticated, he “probably would” rethink his conclusion. Yet he stuck by his testimony that he found nearly a dozen anomalies in the Scull negative that indicated possible tampering.

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Also Monday, the defense read into the record testimony from Los Angeles Police Department photographer Rolf D. Rokahr, who took pictures of the crime scene. The defense contends that Rokahr snapped two pictures of former Det. Mark Fuhrman pointing to a bloody glove near the bodies before dawn on the night of the murders. And indeed, Rokahr testified that “it was still nighttime” and quite dark when he took the photos.

That testimony contradicts sworn statements from at least three police officers. The officers insist that the photo of Fuhrman was taken well after sunrise, after he had discovered a second bloody glove on Simpson’s estate and realized the significance of the evidence. The defense contends that Fuhrman knew even before dawn that the crime-scene glove would prove pivotal, because he had already pocketed its mate with the intention of planting it at Simpson’s home.

Court will be dark today at a juror’s request. The witness list for Wednesday includes Brian “Kato” Kaelin and Simpson’s best friend, Al Cowlings.