‘Blue Moon’ Odom Trial on Cocaine Count to Start

The trial of former major league pitcher John (Blue Moon) Odom for allegedly selling small amounts of cocaine to a fellow worker is expected to begin today, 14 months after his arrest.

The trial, which had been postponed five times since the arrest on May 24, 1985, will be heard by Superior Court Judge David H. Brickner after a jury is selected.

Odom, 41, has maintained his innocence and said Tuesday that he is glad for the chance to finally tell his story in court.

“I just want it over with so I can get my stuff together. This has been hanging over my head too long,” he said.

The former Oakland A’s pitcher, who appeared in three World Series in the early 1970s, said he has been unjustly accused of selling cocaine by Willie Earl Harris, a former colleague at the now-defunct Xerox computer plant in Irvine.

Harris is the prosecution’s key witness in the case, which is expected to take five days to try.

Odom lost his job after his arrest and says he has been unable to find full-time employment since then. He recently began painting houses to earn a living.

Last December, depressed over the case and his inability to find a job, Odom spent six days in jail and psychiatric analysis after attacking his wife at their Fountain Valley apartment. Gayle Odom, 34, was not harmed, and the matter was settled without charges being pressed against her husband.

Although Irvine police officers found no cocaine in Odom’s car at the time of his arrest, according to court records, they discovered a small mirror and a straw--instruments that can be used in sniffing cocaine. Odom’s attorney, Stephan A. DeSales, told Brickner at an informal pretrial session Monday that police charged Odom only after he could not provide them names of other alleged cocaine dealers.

“John told them he did not sell drugs. He basically told them: ‘Take a hike, guys. I don’t have anything to tell you. I don’t have any names to give you.’ ”

DeSales said he would try to prove that police charged Odom because of a “bias” against him when he could not reveal any names.

The defense attorney also said he would prove that a list found in Odom’s car at the time of the arrest was not a “pay-owe sheet” of small drug transactions but a list of Avon products deliveries. He explained that the Odoms sold the door-to-door products to supplement Odom’s $24,000-a-year salary at Xerox.

“John Odom’s position has been ‘let’s get all the facts out.’ He wants to clear his name,” DeSales said. “If I didn’t put him on the stand, he’d kick me upside the head.”

Assistant Dist. Atty. Gregg L. Prickett said he would present about five witnesses, while DeSales indicated he would present at least eight witnesses in the case.