Man Retracts Affidavit Backing Von Bulow Defense Arguments

A man who came forward with evidence supporting Claus von Bulow after the socialite’s conviction of trying to murder his wife now says Von Bulow concocted the statement, a magazine reported Sunday.

David Marriott, 26, surfaced after Von Bulow’s 1982 conviction on charges he tried to murder Martha (Sunny) von Bulow with an overdose of insulin.

Marriott claimed in an affidavit that he had delivered drugs and hypodermic syringes to Mrs. Von Bulow and Von Bulow’s stepson, Alexander von Auersperg. The defense had argued that Mrs. Von Bulow abused drugs.

Von Bulow’s attorneys in seeking a new trial cited the affidavit, arguing that Von Auersperg tried to frame Von Bulow.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court overturned Von Bulow’s conviction on other grounds in April, 1984. The state attorney general announced on Jan. 5 that the 58-year-old Danish-born socialite will be retried.

“Claus wrote the affidavit,” Marriott told New York magazine. “He forced me to sign the . . . thing. He was supporting me (financially) for quite a while.”

The magazine said that Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor who defended Von Bulow, called Marriott a “very, very disturbed young man,” but still believed that the information in the affidavit is true.

“I have asked him to produce whatever evidence he might have of it (Von Bulow’s purported role in the affidavit) and he’s refused to do so,” Dershowitz said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press on Sunday night.

Thomas Puccio, Von Bulow’s lawyer for the retrial, said he did not believe the affidavit, the magazine reported.

Both attorneys denied that Von Bulow had engineered the testimony.

Marriott’s new story conflicts with statements from a priest, Father Philip Magaldi, who also came forward after Von Bulow’s conviction to say that Marriott had told him of the drug deliveries three years before Von Bulow was charged.

Marriott is trying to sell an account of his involvement with the case, the magazine said.

Dershowitz speculated that Marriott changed his story so he would have something to sell, the magazine said.

“I still feel the priest is telling the truth,” he said. “And if the priest is telling the truth, so must be David.”

A person answering Magaldi’s phone Sunday night told the Associated Press that he is on vacation until Tuesday. There was no answer at either Puccio’s or Marriott’s numbers.

Mrs. Von Bulow, 53, heiress to a fortune worth more than $34 million, has been in a coma since 1980. She is in a New York City hospital.