Potential Witness Is Wild Card : 2nd Von Bulow Trial Has Aura of a Classic Mystery

The blue-walled hospital room on the 10th floor of Harkness Pavillion in Manhattan is protected by round-the-clock armed security guards. Regular floor nurses are barred; only a team of five special nurses can go past its brown wooden door.

Beyond a cloth screen that ensures extra privacy, there are fresh lilies and tulips, and small framed pictures of the patient’s favorite dog and two of her children. Get-well cards are pinned to a bulletin board. A small sofa stands by a window that offers a spectacular view of the Hudson River. Music plays almost constantly from a portable radio.

The other afternoon, Martha (Sunny) von Bulow, 53, stirred beneath the flowered-print sheets covering her bed. The millionairess, now gray-haired, lay with uncomprehending half-open eyes while a nurse stood by her bedside. On a nearby table was a tape recorder, always ready should she suddenly awake from her four-year coma.

But three of the world’s top neurologists say that is very unlikely.

Because of the intense concern for her privacy, Mrs. Von Bulow remains a somewhat forgotten, tragic figure as the second trial of her husband, Claus von Bulow ends its first week in Providence, R.I., where more than 100 reporters clamor for places each morning in the oak-paneled courtroom.

Von Bulow, 58, is again charged with attempting to murder his wife twice with insulin injections at their Clarendon Court estate in Newport, R.I. Outside Providence’s Georgian Colonial courthouse, where jury selection is under way, a satellite dish has been set up on the street for round-the-world, often live, transmissions of the televised trial.

There is good reason for the news media’s interest. Von Bulow is at the center of a sensational criminal case that boasts a cast of characters a mystery writer would proudly claim: a beautiful, stricken blonde aristocrat, her mysterious foreign-born husband and his soap opera actress-mistress, and his angry stepchildren determined to avenge what they see as a terrible wrong.

And this time there is a wild card as well, a potential witness who may or may not be called, depending on how the trial develops, a 26-year-old mystery man who gave evidence important to Von Bulow in a new trial--but who then announced his testimony was a lie.

In many respects, the first Von Bulow trial and its sequel will be very different.

Sentenced to 30 Years

In 1982, after two months of testimony and six days of deliberations, a middle-class jury in Newport found the heiress’s husband guilty of two counts of attempted murder. Von Bulow was sentenced to 30 years in prison and was released on $1-million bail, which he promptly posted.

But last year that verdict was overturned by the Rhode Island Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. The state’s new attorney general, Arlene Violet, a former Roman Catholic nun, decided there was enough evidence to try Von Bulow again.

The second trial, expected to last into the summer, was moved from Newport to Providence because the presiding judge said he wanted to avoid a backlog in Newport’s court system. The decision created a furor, especially dismaying local businessmen who had counted on extra income from reporters and others attending the trial.

If the first court case took spectators behind the thick stone walls of Newport’s estates, the second trial is likely to take them deeper into medical and clinical questions. A major defense effort will be made to refute the prosecution’s case that Mrs. Von Bulow’s coma was deliberately caused by an insulin injection--and that insulin was found on the needle of a syringe found in a little black bag in a closet in the family’s mansion.

‘Difference In Testimony’

“In a word, the difference this time is going to be medical and scientific testimony,” said former ABSCAM prosecutor Thomas P. Puccio, the defense team’s new lead counsel.

Defense lawyers for Von Bulow also plan an all-out attack on testimony of Maria Schrallhammer, the family maid whose story about finding the black bag was very damaging during the first trial. They hope to make use of the notes of a lawyer hired by Von Bulow’s stepchildren during her cross-examination, notes not available to the defense during the first trial. They also plan to challenge Sunny von Bulow’s character, portraying her as a drug- and alcohol-abusing socialite, whose coma was caused by her own hand--whether accidental or intentional.

In rebuttal, the prosecution is expected to present friends testifying Mrs. Von Bulow was basically a teetotaler.

“My mom has been in a coma for four years. The image they are trying to portray of her dumbfounds me,” Alexander von Auersperg, Mrs. Von Bulow’s son by her first marriage, said in an interview with The Times. “Reality has been turned on its head.”

Key to Jury’s Verdict

Which portrait the jury believes will be key to the verdict.

The state of Rhode Island alleges that Von Bulow, a Danish-born socialite, twice tried to kill his wife with injections of insulin during Christmas stays at their Newport estate so he could inherit her millions and marry his then girlfriend, Alexandra Isles. In 1979, Sunny von Bulow fell into a coma. She recovered. But it happened again in 1980 and she has not regained consciousness.

As in any good thriller, some of the best plotting may be saved for last. Spectators, who lined up in the hallways even during this week’s jury selection may have to wait until rebuttal witnesses are presented to hear some of the most fascinating testimony.

And, on the floor below the courtroom of Associate Superior Court Justice Corinne P. Grande who is presiding over Von Bulow’s trial, a grand jury has listened to testimony that could influence the case and possibly result in later court action.

Prosecutors before the grand jury have been looking into the story of David Marriott, 26, who was scheduled to be one of the Von Bulow defense team’s leading witnesses until he suddenly and stunningly disowned his testimony.

Said He Delivered Drugs

According to his original affidavit, Marriott delivered drugs at least a half-dozen times during the summers of 1977 and 1978 to Von Auersperg, the heiress’s son. Marriott asserted that on one occasion Sunny von Bulow herself accepted a package from him. The packages allegedly were given to Marriott by an interior decorator who was found murdered in 1978. His killing has not been solved.

Marriott now denies ever knowing either Mrs. Von Bulow or her son. Von Auersperg agrees: “I never met him.” In addition, Marriott has alleged that Von Bulow wrote the affidavit for him in an attempt to win a new trial.

Von Bulow’s lawyers staunchly deny all this. But prosecutors have subpoenaed documents from Marriott, including personal checks made out to him from Von Bulow, in an attempt to examine the relationship between the 58-year-old millionaire and the 26-year-old Marriott.

Marriott, who still lives in the family’s middle-class household in Wakefield, Mass., does not reveal the source of his income. Nevertheless, he appears to maintain a jet-setter life style, riding in stretch limousines, dining in fine Boston restaurants and drinking $240-a-bottle vintage 1972 Le Montrachet wine.

Housekeeper Questioned

As part of the investigation, prosecutors questioned the Marriott family’s former housekeeper, who told them that Von Bulow had visited their home. Marriott’s father and mother also confirmed the visits. Defense lawyers confirm that Marriott also visited Von Bulow’s New York apartment several times and stayed overnight once.

Von Bulow’s lawyers say Marriott came to them in 1982, just before the end of the first trial, with the story that he was a friend of Von Auersperg. They say he also told them that he had been prompted to come forward by a Rhode Island priest, Father Philip Magaldi, who had been his spiritual adviser for several years.

At some point, Marriott began secretly taping conversations with, among others, Von Bulow; defense lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz; Von Bulow’s current companion Andrea Reynolds and Magaldi, whose own affidavit supports Marriott’s original story.

In an interview with The Times, Marriott charged that he began making the tape-recordings when he became frightened because Von Bulow was forcing him to lie. He said he got the idea after Von Bulow asked him to tape his conversations with investigators.

Various Payments Detailed

Marriott also said that Von Bulow had paid for some of his expenses--including eyeglasses, limousines, bodyguard fees, telephone bills and trips to Puerto Rico, Florida and Newport. One letter between lawyers for Von Bulow and lawyers for Marriott detailed $6,050.85 in payments to Marriott for, among other things, air fare to San Juan and a hotel room. Another payment of $1,303.51 included reimbursements for eyeglasses and telephone bills.

Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor who handled Von Bulow’s successful appeal of his first conviction, said in an interview in his book-crowded Harvard office that he had heard small portions of the tapes and “there is little doubt” the voices on them are authentic. But he added that he doubts the tapes Marriott turned over to the prosecutors are complete.

The defense counsel charged that Marriott, his former witness and now adversary, is a “pathological liar.” He said that before Marriott signed the original affidavit, he and his students conducted an extensive investigation of Marriott’s story.

As for the checks Marriott got, Dershowitz said he wrote a legal opinion stating that it was proper for Von Bulow to reimburse Marriott for expenses as long as they were receipted and passed on to the witness by an attorney. The professor said Von Bulow sent Marriott on trips for legitimate reasons, either to investigate leads or to leave the Boston area because of alleged threats against the witness.

Amount Involved Disputed

Dershowitz estimated that Von Bulow paid Marriott about $10,000 through lawyers; Marriott, on the other hand, claims it was $80,000.

Prosecutors plan to use Marriott as a rebuttal witness if Von Bulow takes the stand in his own defense, as he has promised. Dershowitz says he relishes the prospect of Marriott taking the stand and is confident he can destroy his credibility.

As for Father Magaldi, whose affidavit backs Marriott’s original version, the professor calls the priest “the essence of credibility,” but adds that Magaldi will not appear as a defense witness. Magaldi has made no public statements and his lawyer, William Dimitri, declined repeated requests for interviews.

All the preliminary sparring between Marriott and Von Bulow, between prosecution and defense, has only hardened lines in the battle over what really happened to the Pittsburgh utilities heiress, who almost certainly will never awake to see her family or leave her hospital bed.

“My sister and I are going up there to pursue justice on behalf of our mother,” Von Auersperg said. “I think its time for the world to realize what an easy victim she has been for Claus and Dershowitz.”

Counters Dershowitz with a smile: “This will be very different from the first trial. This time, a coherent account will emerge.”