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O.J. Simpson listens to the verdict in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, while his sister Shirley Baker sits behind him.
MARY CHANEY AP |
"Aren't they beautiful? Aren't they beautiful?"
Daniel Petrocelli repeated the words in the "clean room" as he stared at the 30 different pictures that had just emerged from a Fed Ex package and were spread out on an oval table. It was the middle of the Christmas recess in the Simpson civil trial, and the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs was admiring a present. There, shown 30 times over on O.J. Simpson's feet, were what the attorneys would argue was a pair of rare size-12 Bruno Magli shoes, the Lorenzo model, with the distinctive stitching, seams and design, one of only 299 pairs sold in the U.S. between 1991 and 1993. Most important, they were the kind of shoes that, the plaintiffs said, left bloody imprints at the scene where Simpson's ex-wife Nicole and would-be actor Ronald Goldman were murdered. "Ugly-ass shoes," Simpson had said during depositions, denying he owned them.
"Aren't they beautiful? Aren't they beautiful?"
Every bit of important strategizing by the plaintiffs transpired in what was dubbed the clean room. It had been set up in September in Suite 205 of the Doubletree Guest Suites Hotel, just across the street from the Santa Monica courthouse where the trial would be held. The plaintiffs' attorneys had heard tales of "defense shenanigans" during the criminal case, so their first step was the installation of a complex alarm system to guard against breaches in security. A motion detector was activated every time the room was locked, and there were separate deadbolt locks on the back room that housed a computer linked to a mainframe at Petrocelli's office at Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp. The back room had an important blue wastebasket; everything that went into it was put through the shredder. Periodically, Suite 205 was "swept" for bugging devices. And it was in this secure area that the plaintiffs saw the 30 keys to victory.
Until the photos were uncovered, Petrocelli had been concerned about the shoes. Earlier in the course of the trial, he had presented a single photograph of Simpson wearing Bruno Maglis taken by photographer Harry Scull. The defense declared the photo was a fake, and Petrocelli was afraid the jury might buy into that claim-even though his partner Peter Gelblum had brutally discredited the defense photo expert, Robert Groden, a J.F.K. assassination buff with no formal training in photography. Then came word that other pictures existed. "Oh, my God. Are they real?" Gelblum asked Petrocelli.
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