Carson Says Threat Defendant Was Outside House

Entertainer Johnny Carson testified Thursday that a man accused of sending him threatening letters and tapes in an extortion attempt appeared outside his Malibu home on at least one occasion.

Carson, 64, testified at a preliminary hearing in Burbank Municipal Court that after investigators showed him a picture of Ken Orville Gause, “I realized I had seen him, and my wife had seen him” outside the star’s home several months ago.

Carson testified that he had hired armed security guards for his protection after the defendant first appeared at the NBC studios in August, 1989. He said it was not until police showed him a picture of Gause that he realized that he had seen the man before.

Carson said he had received many threatening letters and audiotapes from Gause over the last two years.

Gause, armed with a homemade bludgeon--a sock filled with salt--was arrested Dec. 6 when he showed up at the NBC studios in Burbank, where Carson’s “Tonight Show” is taped, making threats and demanding to see Carson, police said.

The subject of a Burbank police investigation since 1987, Gause had sent many letters and tapes to Carson, including one in which he threatened to blow up the NBC studios if Carson did not give him $5 million, police said.

Gause, 36, of Milwaukee has pleaded not guilty to five counts of making terrorist threats and five counts of sending threatening letters to Carson. If convicted on all charges, Gause faces a maximum sentence of eight years in jail, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert L. Cohen.

Carson testified that although it was “not unusual for people with a high profile to get rather bizarre and strange letters,” he was not fearful “unless they came from people threatening to kill you.”

Gause appeared inattentive during most of the hearing, but the defendant kept his eyes fixed on Carson while the celebrity was on the stand.

Pamela Sias, Carson’s personal assistant, testified that most of the letters received from Gause were written on yellow legal paper--one partially burned--and were addressed to “crazy old Johnny Carson, and or the NBC staff.”

Sias said several of the letters featured pictures of either a skull and crossbones or a knife.

She testified that Gause alleged in his letters and tapes that Carson had stolen “mail, money and presents” from him for 10 years and that he wanted the money back to support his ailing mother and grandmother. Sias said that the last letter was received in November, 1989, and that in it Gause demanded that Carson pay him $5.5 million.

Gause’s attorney, Mark Zavidow, said afterward that his client “has never hurt anybody” and that Gause “believed sincerely” that Carson owed him the money. Zavidow said that his client had previously been in a “mental institution for observation.”

Gause, who is being held in Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail, was ordered to appear for arraignment Feb. 2 in Pasadena Superior Court.