Introducing The 1996 Kato Kaelin
SANTA MONICA, Nov. 19 (Noon) -- A new Brian "Kato" Kaelin took the stand Tuesday saying that the three quick thumps he heard on June 12, 1994 sounded "like someone falling back behind my bedroom wall." Earlier in the morning session, jurors listened to a police officer's secretly recorded tape that caught Nicole Brown Simpson and O.J. Simpson trading accusations about who was responsible for a fight at her house.
Kaelin will continue to testify on cross-examination this afternoon. Allan Park, the limousine driver, is scheduled to follow.
Although some of Kaelin's testimony was similar to his testimony in the criminal trial, a different, more serious person took the stand. With shorter hair and wearing a jacket and tie, Kaelin offered potentially damning testimony against OJ. Simpson without the slightest hesitation. Kaelin, who finished his direct examination shortly before the noon break, discussed his interactions with Simpson the day before, and on the day of, the murders. On June 11, Kaelin told the jury, Simpson asked him to watch a scene involving oral sex in the movie "The World According to Garp."
"He compared it to seeing Nicole giving oral sex at the Gretna Green house to a gentleman named Keith," Kato said.
Kaelin also talked about his numerous interactions with Simpson on June 12, the day of the murders. During the afternoon, Kaelin said Simpson told him that he "would do something with the IRS and Nicole's address that would somehow do financial damage to her." Kato told the jury about the now-infamous McDonald's trip that evening and said Simpson was wearing "a sharp-looking sweatsuit, dark."
The plaintiffs also used Kaelin's testimony to preemptively impeach Simpson, who will take the stand at the end of the week. Kaelin contradicted Simpson's deposition testimony in a number of different areas, all pertaining to Simpson's whereabouts between 9:37 and 11:00 p.m. on June 12. In his deposition, Simpson says he was watching television, walking the dog, and chipping golf balls. Under questioning from lead plaintiffs' attorney Daniel Petrocelli, Kaelin said that Simpson never walked his dog, Chachi. And after returning from McDonald's, Kaelin said he didn't hear any noise outside that sounded like Simpson playing golf. Kaelin also told the jury that he could usually see the light from Simpson's television reflected in his bedroom window, but that night he could not.
Before Kaelin's testified, plaintiff's attorneys introduced the tape during the testimony of LAPD Police office Robert Lerner, who responded to a domestic violence call on Oct. 25, 1993. Lerner's supervisor made the tape, recording his separate conversations with both O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson. Although the tape's quality is poor, plaintiffs attorney John Kelly asked Lerner to authenticate several statements by Nicole Brown Simpson, which can be clearly heard. In one, she says, "He gets this animalistic look to him . . . I get scared when he looks like that."
-Robert Schmidt
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