GTE Officials Discipline Workers in Ethics Case : Legal: Spokesman says curiosity about O.J. Simpson records prompted attempts to breach confidential telephone files.

Telephone company workers curious about the O.J. Simpson murder case have been disciplined for trying unsuccessfully to tap into confidential phone records, a GTE spokesman said Monday.

“This type of action, even though it was unsuccessful, is a violation of the code of ethics of GTE,” spokesman Larry Cox said.

Cox said the Thousands Oaks-based company has already met with most of the affected employees and administered punishment. He declined to comment on a report that at least one person was fired and 18 others had been disciplined.

Punishment for ethical code violations, however, could range from a verbal warning to outright dismissal, he said.

Union officials could not be reached for comment.

Cox said the workers did not actually gain access to the confidential files, because the company put certain phone records off-limits to all but a handful of security officials.

“Early on, it became apparent that there was going to be an inordinate amount of curiosity about people in the O.J. Simpson case,” Cox said. “We literally received dozens of calls.”

Typically, employees in GTE’s billing office can call up detailed phone logs to answer questions for customers. But shortly after the June 12 slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, the phone company restricted key files.

But any employee who tried to call up records for O.J. Simpson, his ex-wife, her parents or family friend Al Cowlings saw nothing more than a blank screen, Cox said.

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At the same time, their efforts to access the file were recorded, he said, tipping the phone company off to violations.

Cox acknowledged that the records were unprotected for a short time immediately after the double slaying, but said pertinent phone calls may not have appeared in the records that soon.

“At no time was the information in jeopardy,” Cox said.

GTE has turned the information over to law enforcement officials, who have used phone records in trying to establish the time of the slayings. Defense attorneys and prosecutors have focused in particular on a call Nicole Simpson made to her mother on the night Simpson died.