Transcripts Reveal New Details in Simpson Case : Investigation: Ex-boyfriend of Nicole Simpson told grand jury of defendant’s intimidating behavior.

Hundreds of pages of grand jury transcripts in the O.J. Simpson investigation reveal new details about how police and prosecutors scrambled to put together a case against the superstar athlete--weaving together preliminary DNA tests, testimony and other evidence, but reeling when one of their witnesses sold her story to a tabloid television show.

The transcripts offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the 20-member grand jury, which was dismissed from the Simpson case because jurors had been exposed to the enormous publicity surrounding it. The newly released documents also provide several nuggets of information that have not been revealed in the public court hearings involving the June 12 killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Simpson has pleaded “absolutely 100% not guilty.”

Among the disclosures contained in the 460-page grand jury transcript, obtained last week after it was unsealed by a Superior Court judge:

* A police criminalist testified that DNA analysis known as PCR tests determined that blood samples from Simpson’s car and the foyer of his house were consistent with his blood, as were droplets leading away from the murder scene. A glove discovered at his Brentwood mansion contained a mix of DNA markers that were consistent with blood from the two victims and Simpson, a police analyst testified, calling it a “possible mixture.” The test results for the glove were not conclusive, however, and PCR tests are not as definitive as more rigorous DNA analysis that is now being conducted on the samples.

* A restaurateur named Keith D. Zlomsowitch testified that O.J. Simpson threatened and intimidated him when he began dating Simpson’s ex-wife in 1992, and that the former football star once spied on him and Nicole Simpson through a window as they were having an intimate encounter on a couch. Zlomsowitch’s testimony almost certainly would create a significant legal debate if prosecutors attempted to have him take the stand in Simpson’s trial, experts said.

* The medical examiner who examined the bodies told grand jurors that all the wounds to both victims could have been caused by a single knife. That same doctor later testified at Simpson’s preliminary hearing that two weapons could have been used, a statement seized upon by the football Hall of Famer’s lawyers to suggest that there could have been multiple assailants.

* A police expert, Dennis K. Fung, testified that blood was recovered from a sink in Simpson’s bathroom and that evidence at the scene of the crime suggested that the assailant did not run but rather walked away from the murder scene, dripping blood.

* A Santa Monica resident named Jill Shively testified that Simpson “turned around and glared at me” after almost hitting her car with his Ford Bronco just after the killings were committed nearby.

The Shively testimony might have dramatically bolstered the prosecution case by presenting an eyewitness who allegedly saw Simpson in the neighborhood where the killings occurred. But Shively misled prosecutors when she told them she had not spoken to anyone else except her mother about what she had seen.

In fact, she had sold an interview to a television tabloid show for $5,000 and had done the interview before she testified for the grand jury on June 21. When prosecutors discovered that, they were furious. They called her back to the grand jury a second time and pointedly inquired about her television appearance.

Under questioning from Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark, Shively acknowledged that she had misled prosecutors but said she had not meant to do anything wrong.

“I am, I was nervous and hadn’t slept all week and wasn’t really thinking,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything because I knew it was being aired the next day, and I assumed I would be involved in the trial, so I wasn’t doing anything to break the trust.”

Confronted with that embarrassment, prosecutors elected to drop Shively from the case altogether.

“I must ask you to completely disregard the statements given and the testimony given by Jill Shively in this case,” Clark told grand jurors. “I cannot allow her to be part of this case now that she has proven to be untruthful as to any aspect of her statement.”

Having dropped Shively from the grand jury proceedings, prosecutors elected not to call her during the preliminary hearing. As a result, the grand jury transcripts offer the only look at her sworn testimony.

Zlomsowitch also has yet to testify in any open court hearing, and his account is potentially explosive, portraying Simpson as intimidating and threatening toward him and Nicole Simpson, with whom he was romantically linked for about a month in 1992.

During his time before the grand jury, Zlomsowitch, director of operations for the Brentwood restaurant Mezzaluna, related a series of chilling stories with a common theme: that O.J. Simpson became intensely jealous and angry when he saw his ex-wife with another man. All the reputed incidents Zlomsowitch described occurred in the spring of 1992.

The two first met in Aspen, Colo., in January, 1992, Zlomsowitch testified. Soon after arriving in California a few months later, he added, he got together with Nicole Simpson and several of her friends at the Mezzaluna in Beverly Hills.

As they were sitting at their table, Zlomsowitch continued, Simpson entered the restaurant and came over. “He leaned over our table, rested his hands on the table and sort of stared at myself and the other male individual at the table and introduced himself as Mr. O.J. Simpson and replied: ‘I’m O.J. Simpson, and she’s still my wife.’ ”

Zlomsowitch said he felt “very intimidated” and said Nicole Simpson, who was then legally separated from the former football star, seemed quite upset.

A week later, at a newly opened Westside eatery called Tryst, Nicole Simpson and Zlomsowitch and some friends had just been seated when Simpson abruptly entered the restaurant, Zlomsowitch testified. He said O.J. Simpson strode by their table, seated himself nearby, turned his chair 180 degrees and stared at their party for eight to 10 minutes.

“This actually was so uncomfortable that one of the guests at our party felt so shaken she got up and left the restaurant,” Zlomsowitch said.

When Clark asked him how Nicole responded, Zlomsowitch said: “She was very, very nervous, very uncomfortable and shaken.”

Those disconcerting encounters were followed by a third, more explosive one, Zlomsowitch said. After an evening at a comedy club and then dancing, Zlomsowitch said, he and Nicole Simpson returned to her home in Brentwood.

“We got to the house, we lit a few candles, put on a little music, poured a glass of wine and we sat on the couch in the downstairs living room of the house and we began to become intimate,” he testified. After a few hours, Nicole Simpson went to bed and Zlomsowitch went home, he said.

But the next day, Zlomsowitch said, he returned to her place and was giving her a neck massage when the two were startled to look up and see O.J. Simpson.

Zlomsowitch and Nicole Simpson were fully clothed, Zlomsowitch said. But Simpson was livid, according to Zlomsowitch’s testimony: “He said: ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Look what you are doing. Look what you are doing. The kids are right out here by the pool. Look what you guys are doing.’ ”

Zlomsowitch said Simpson then sat down next to them and declared: “ ‘I watched you last night. I can’t believe you would do that in the house. I watched you. . . . I saw everything you did.’ ”

Zlomsowitch--who said Simpson spoke with his ex-wife privately and then came back to extend his hand and say, “No hard feelings . . . You understand, you know, I’m a very proud man”--could prove a powerful witness if allowed to testify at Simpson’s upcoming trial, legal experts agreed.

Suzanne Childs, chief spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, said Saturday that it would be premature to say whether Zlomsowitch will be called as a witness by the prosecution. If prosecutors do try to call Zlomsowitch, experts predicted that a major legal battle would ensue.

Myrna Raeder, a Southwestern University law professor, predicted “a real fight over this testimony.” Peter Arenella, a UCLA criminal law professor, agreed.

“In general, California law prohibits the prosecution from introducing evidence of a defendant’s prior bad acts or bad character to support the inference that the defendant committed the charged offense,” Arenella said. “However, the California Evidence Code does provide an exception to this general prohibition when that evidence tends to establish the defendant’s motive or intent.”

As a result, Arenella said, prosecutors could argue that Simpson was pathologically jealous and that his jealousy could have been a motive for the June 12 killings.

“Certainly the allegation from Mr. Zlomsowitch that Mr. Simpson admitted to him that he had watched the former boyfriend and Nicole make love in the privacy of her home one evening suggests the type of pathological stalking behavior that could have a powerful impact on a jury,” Arenella said.

When the grand jury began meeting June 17, the investigation had not even been under way for a week, and the transcripts reveal the extraordinary speed with which police and prosecutors were working.

“Some of the delays that we have encountered are due to the fact that the investigation is proceeding at a rapid pace but is still very actively being pursued,” Clark said apologetically to grand jurors at one point.

Detective Philip L. Vannatter, one of the lead investigators in the case, echoed that when he testified on June 22, 10 days after the double murder in Brentwood.

“Is this investigation currently ongoing, sir?” Clark asked him.

“Yes, it certainly is,” the detective answered.

“Very actively?” she asked.

“Very actively,” he responded.

In his testimony, Vannatter described his interview with Simpson on the day after the killings, noting that he informed Simpson of his rights and that Simpson waived his right to remain silent.

“I asked him if he wished to give up his right to remain silent and talk with us, with his attorney’s knowledge,” Vannatter testified. “And he said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Without his lawyer present, Simpson told the investigator that he had cut himself first at home and later in Chicago, explaining that was why bloodstains turned up at both locations. Simpson could not recall exactly how he initially had cut his hand, Vannatter said.

According to the detective, Simpson said he re-injured the hand in Chicago when police called to tell him of his ex-wife’s murder, and he slammed a glass down in response to the news.

But Simpson also said he had not been to his wife’s house for roughly a week prior to the murders and insisted that he had not left blood there. During the preliminary hearing, Simpson attorney Robert L. Shapiro said that even if Simpson’s blood were found at his ex-wife’s house, it would not necessarily suggest his guilt because he could have cut himself there on a previous occasion.

In a case in which much attention has focused on DNA testing of blood samples, the grand jury transcripts also provide the first sworn testimony about some of those tests. Law enforcement sources have said a quick procedure known as PCR testing showed that blood from the crime scene was consistent with Simpson’s, as was blood found in his car and at his Brentwood estate. The transcripts provide the first sworn evidence of that, as they include testimony from Collin Yamauchi, a Police Department criminalist.

Yamauchi also told grand jurors that a glove found outside Simpson’s home was stained with a mixture of blood. The mixture, he said, was consistent with blood from both victims and Simpson, though he added that one of the markers indicative of Simpson’s blood was only a “potential.”

More rigorous DNA analysis known as RFLP testing got under way last week. Results are not expected from those tests for at least a month.

The preliminary DNA findings, the descriptions of Simpson’s talk with police and the testimony by Zlomsowitch all raise potential problems for the defense and come after a week in which Simpson’s camp scored several victories. In particular, they publicly aired details of a possible witness with information indicating other assailants could have committed the attack.

That witness, a 45-year-old burglar with a long arrest record, has spoken at length to detectives and to The Times. He said he was across the street casing houses on the night of the murders when he saw two bearded, burly white men leaving Nicole Simpson’s condominium property after hearing a woman scream.

The prowler’s credibility is certain to be tested as the case moves forward. But, without naming him, defense attorneys have suggested that they will use his account and those of other possible witnesses to raise doubts about the prosecution’s theory of the case.

Both sides are next scheduled to be in court Aug. 9.

Grand Jury Witnesses

A Los Angeles County Grand Jury began hearing testimony in the O.J. Simpson murder case on Friday, June 17. Before the panel was taken off the case a week later, grand jurors heard testimony from 16 witnesses--one of whom testified twice. They also received 34 exhibits, including photographs, charts and diagrams.

Most but not all of the witnesses later testified at Simpson’s preliminary hearing. The witnesses who testified before the grand jury were:

1. Brian (Kato) Kaelin--Simpson guest house tenant who testified about seeing Simpson in the hours immediately before and after the killings took place.

2. Dr. Irwin L. Golden--Medical examiner who testified about how the two victims died.

3. Jill Shively--Santa Monica resident who said she saw Simpson rushing from the area where the murders occurred. Shively later admitted that she had accepted money to tell her story to a television tabloid. She was not called during the preliminary hearing.

4. Sukru Boztepe--Neighbor of Nicole Brown Simpson’s who described finding the bodies.

5. Bettina Rasmussen--Boztepe’s wife, who also described her role in discovering the bodies.

6. John Anthony DeBello--Colleague of Ronald Lyle Goldman’s at Mezzaluna who testified about Goldman’s last night there.

7. Jose Camacho--Knife salesman who said he sold Simpson a 15-inch German Stiletto knife several weeks before the murders.

8. Karen Lee Crawford--Colleague of Goldman’s who said Nicole Simpson called her about some glasses her mother had left at the restaurant.

9. Keith Douglas Zlomsowitch--Restaurateur who described dating Nicole Simpson and being intimidated by her ex-husband. He said Simpson once spied on them through a window while they were in an intimate situation.

10. Allan William Park--Limousine driver who came to take Simpson to the airport on the night of the murders but was kept waiting because no one came to the door.

11. Detective Tom Lange--One of the lead investigators in the case, Lange testified about the condition of the bodies and the bloody crime scene.

12. Officer Robert Lance Riske--One of the first patrol officers on the scene, he told grand jurors about securing the area and taking Nicole Simpson’s children out of the house.

13. Detective Philip L. Vannatter--One of the lead investigators, Vannatter described interviewing Simpson on the day after the murders as well as testifying about the search of Simpson’s estate that same day.

14. Thano M. Peratis--Registered nurse who testified about taking a blood sample from Simpson.

15. Dennis Kirk Fung--LAPD criminalist who testified about finding blood at the crime scene and at Simpson’s estate, including samples recovered from a sink in the master bathroom.

16. Jill Shively (recalled)--In her second appearance on the stand, Shively was questioned about her paid interview with the tabloid television show “Hard Copy.”

17. Collin Yamauchi--LAPD criminalist who testified that preliminary DNA tests of blood samples showed that blood at the scene of the crime was consistent with O.J. Simpson’s, as were samples recovered from his car and estate. A glove found on his property could contain a mixture of his blood and that of the two victims, Yamauchi added.