Domestic Violence Reports Continue to Soar in Wake of Simpson Case : Crime: Prosecutors are filing nearly double the number of charges since attention focused on spousal abuse. Calls to police and counseling hot lines are also much higher.

The number of domestic violence charges filed in the Los Angeles courts in the last few weeks is soaring, apparently the result of Nicole Brown Simpson’s homicide and people identifying with her, prosecutors said.

The filing rate in June--during and after the initial surge of publicity surrounding the Simpson murder investigation--was dramatically higher than in May, prosecutors said.

At the Van Nuys Municipal Court, prosecutors in the city attorney’s office filed charges in 117 cases in May. They brought 229 in June, a 96% increase.

Downtown, the district attorney’s domestic violence unit is so busy that prosecutors are still playing catch-up with statistics. They estimate that they may have filed up to 120 cases in June, about one-third more than the 90 filed in May.

“One of the things that I’m seeing is that women are nervous about what happened with the Simpson case,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lydia Bodin said. “It scares them. They think, ‘Uh-oh, I could end up like that.

“And so,” she said, “they’re tending to report more” complaints to authorities.

The increase in court filings is another sign of the intense public attention devoted to spousal abuse and domestic violence--a focus prompted by the June 12 slayings of Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman and the arrest of O.J. Simpson, the superstar athlete turned actor.

Calls to domestic violence hot lines have also skyrocketed.

The Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women recorded about 3,000 calls during June, up more than two times from the average of 1,300 calls per month, officials said.

Calls to police are on the rise as well.

The Los Angeles Police Department took 10,930 domestic violence reports from April through June, up 8.6% from the 10,064 reports officers took from January through March.

Almost all LAPD divisions saw more reports. The Foothill Division, which serves the east San Fernando Valley, took 749 reports from April through June, up 23% from 608 the previous three months.

The Van Nuys Division, in the central Valley, took the most reports of any division in the city from April through June, 1,005. That was a 21% increase from 829 reports the previous three months.

And calls to prosecutors are up--a particularly telling barometer.

“Almost always, when women come to us, it’s the second or third or fourth incident,” said Deputy City Atty. Richard A. Schmidt, supervisor of the city attorney’s Van Nuys branch. “These women have often suffered in silence and finally decided they can’t take it anymore, or they become afraid enough that they report it.”

The city attorney’s office wins 77% of the domestic violence cases it files.

The increase in complaints, Schmidt said, does not indicate an abrupt increase in beatings: “I don’t think there was a sudden spasm of domestic violence in June.”

Instead, Schmidt said, the avalanche of publicity surrounding the Simpson case seems to have made victims aware that “they can find some redress and some assistance from the criminal justice system, ponderous as it is.”

In an average month, Van Nuys deputies file 122 domestic violence cases, Schmidt said. In one workweek in June, the five-day span that ended June 17--when O.J. Simpson was arrested--they took on 50 such cases, or 10 new cases each day.

The surge shows no signs of stopping soon, Schmidt said. Through Wednesday, he said, Van Nuys prosecutors had filed 156 domestic violence cases in July--an average of 12 each working day.

Of the 229 domestic violence complaints filed in June in the Van Nuys Municipal Court, 82%, or 189, include allegations of physical violence or the use of a weapon, Schmidt said. The remaining 30, he said, are charges of vandalism or violations of a restraining order.

Prosecutors elsewhere around the county also are recording increases in domestic violence filing rates.

The San Fernando branch of the city attorney’s office filed 18 complaints in May. In June, the figure was 42, a 133% increase.

The San Pedro branch filed 74 cases in May, 106 in June, a 43% increase.

The Hollywood branch, which filed 17 spousal battery cases in May, filed 22 in June--and through Tuesday, had filed 21 in July.

Times staff writer Beth Shuster contributed to this story.