Denny Defendant Admits to Attack on Tape : Courts: Recording of interrogation is played during preliminary hearing. Williams tells police that the trucker did not provoke the assault at Florence and Normandie.

A main defendant in the April 29 attack on Reginald O. Denny told police that he is guilty of hitting the truck driver with a brick and that he never heard Denny yell racial slurs, according to a tape-recording of the interrogation played in court Friday.

“I did do wrong,” Damian Monroe (Football) Williams told police in an interview recorded hours after his arrest during a pre-dawn raid May 12. “I’m guilty . . . for throwing that rock.”

Asked why he hit the truck driver, Williams, 19, responds: “I was stupid.”

The entire tape was aired publicly for the first time Friday, although excerpts have been released previously.

During the interrogation, Williams denies harming other motorists at Florence and Normandie avenues and says he tried to keep some victims from being beaten.

“I never seen my daddy,” Williams says on the tape, his voice cracking with sobs. “I bet if I had a father, I wouldn’t be in this predicament that I’m in right now.”

Later in the tape, Williams says he told his mother about his role in the attack and that she told him he had sinned.

“I told her: ‘Momma, I did throw the rock,’ ” Williams says. “She said: ‘Dame, You know you were wrong, but that was the Devil.’ ”

Williams was in court to hear the tape played, and he tipped his head forward and wiped away tears as a spellbound audience strained to listen. His co-defendants, Antoine Eugene Miller and Henry Keith (Kiki) Watson, stared straight ahead.

Williams’ mother, Georgiana Williams, was in the audience, but declined to comment afterward, referring all questions to her son’s lawyers.

The recording highlighted a week of testimony in the preliminary hearing for the three suspects. It was introduced into evidence only after Williams’ lawyers waged an unsuccessful battle to challenge it. They said police improperly advised Williams of his rights and that he only spoke to them after he was promised leniency in return for his cooperation.

The contention was the subject of a long exchange between Dennis Palmieri, one of Williams’ lawyers, and Los Angeles Police Detective Art Daedelow. During more than two hours of cross-examination, Palmieri repeatedly attempted to get Daedelow to concede that he had promised Williams that he could go home if he helped investigators.

At one point on the tape, Williams says that if Daedelow shows him videotapes, he will help identify suspects. But, Williams added: “If I help you, then what’s up with me?

“We talked about that, didn’t we?” Daedelow responds on the tape.

Palmieri said the exchange shows that Daedelow promised Williams leniency in return for his help, but Daedelow said the comment referred to an earlier conversation in which he told Williams that he would not be going home under any circumstances.

Daedelow also dismissed as absurd the idea that he would grant Williams leniency, noting that Williams was the chief suspect in an investigation of “the largest riot in American history” and that he had just been arrested by Daryl F. Gates, then the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

“If I had let Damian Williams go home that morning, my career probably would have ended five minutes later,” Daedelow said during his testimony. “Chief Gates had just arrested this man.”

Daedelow conceded, however, that the recording only portrays Williams receiving a partial recitation of his rights. On the tape, Daedelow can be heard telling Williams that anything he says can be used against him in court, that he has the right to meet with a lawyer or to have one appointed for him. But Daedelow is not heard telling Williams that he has the right to remain silent.

The reason for that, Daedelow testified, is that the tape has a five-second leader, and it did not pick up the first sentence of him reading Williams his rights. The tape does include Daedelow asking Williams whether he gives up his right to remain silent, and Williams says: “Yes.”

Although Palmieri had asked that the courtroom be cleared before the tape was played, Municipal Judge Larry P. Fidler denied that request. Fidler suggested that Palmieri could argue for excluding the tape from evidence after questioning Daedelow, but Palmieri declined and the tape was played.

In addition to including Williams’ admissions of guilt in the Denny beating, the tape also robs him of a defense that his lawyers have hinted might be offered. Supporters of Williams and the other defendants have argued that Denny provoked the beating by inflaming the crowd with taunts and racial slurs, but Williams says on the tape that he never heard Denny say those things.

“Did (Denny) do anything to you?” Daedelow asks.

“No,” Williams answers.

“Did he say anything to you?” the detective asks.

“No,” Williams answers. “I heard that he had said racial slurs.”

“Who did you hear that from?” Daedelow asks.

“Everyone,” Williams says.

“But you didn’t hear that?” Daedelow continues.

“No,” Williams says.

As damaging as the tape may be to Williams’ case, defense attorneys said it does not appear to provide evidence that could hurt Watson or Miller.

On the tape, Williams tells Daedelow that he was not even aware that Miller and Watson were part of the assault. Williams calls Watson “a gentleman” and “a nice guy.” And he defends Miller, who was raised in part by Williams’ mother because Miller’s mother suffers from a drug problem and his father lives out of state.

One of Miller’s lawyers, James Gillen, said the tape reinforces his client’s contention that he did nothing more than open the door to Denny’s truck. Miller also spoke with police after being arrested but denied that he intended to harm Denny.

The preliminary hearing continues Monday. At its conclusion, Fidler will determine whether there is sufficient evidence for the defendants to be bound over for trial.