COUNTYWIDE : Appeals Court Puts Rape Trial on Hold

A multiple rape trial was interrupted Monday when an appeals court agreed to consider an allegation by the defense that a key prosecution witness had deliberately misidentified a piece of evidence in the trial.

Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald sent jurors home after he received a rare call from the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana ordering an immediate halt to the proceedings until the panel could consider arguments on the matter today.

Sylvan B. Aronson, attorney for defendant Paul William Jensen, 48, of Newport Beach, was in the middle of his closing argument to the jury when the call came.

Jensen has been charged with more than 20 criminal counts in connection with the sexual assault, rape, kidnaping and beating of three women outside Orange County shopping centers--two in Santa Ana and one in Mission Viejo--in crimes dating back to June, 1990.

Jensen has been in custody since his arrest June 17. He denied the charges in an earlier jailhouse interview with The Times, saying police had the wrong man.

In the late 1980s, Jensen served 2 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of having sexually assaulted four women he had met in bars or through newspaper ads he placed seeking a roommate.

The issue the appeals court will consider revolves around an item that authorities say they saw in Jensen’s night stand during a search of his residence.

The item was never seized or presented as evidence in court, but an investigator at Jensen’s trial described it as a male device designed to aid sexual performance.

The investigator’s description appeared to support testimony from a rape victim who identified Jensen as her attacker and said he had difficulty completing the sex act, prosecutors maintained. The victim made no specific mention of a sexual device, however.

Aronson maintained that the supposed aid was in fact a thin metal woman’s bracelet about 6 inches in diameter. Aronson also asserted that the investigator deliberately misidentified the bracelet as a sexual aid in order to bolster the prosecution’s case.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Debbie Lloyd did not address the defense’s assertion that the item found in the night stand was a bracelet. Lloyd declined further comment outside the courtroom and did not respond to phone calls later in the day.

Fitzgerald denied Aronson’s motion and ordered him to proceed with his closing argument. The judge also denied Aronson’s request for a short delay to file a writ with the Court of Appeal, saying he had never before had an appeal of a ruling of his halt a trial in progress.

When the appeal court’s decision was relayed to him by his clerk, Fitzgerald told the jury that the court was experiencing “technical difficulty with our picture” and asked the jurors to return on Wednesday morning.

For a trial to be interrupted so far along in the proceedings--particularly during closing arguments--is rare. Most such interruptions take place at the outset. Such was the case in the recent trial of Paul Michael Crowder, who was convicted of the post-prom killing of Berlyn F. Cosman. That trial was also halted by an appellate ruling conveyed to the court by telephone.