Simpson Case Tipster Jailed After Refusing to Talk to Grand Jury : Courts: The man’s attorney says he fears for his life and now doubts the district attorney’s promise of confidentiality.

A man who says he gave prosecutors a tip in the O.J. Simpson double-murder case and now fears for his life was jailed Wednesday for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Simpson’s friend Al Cowlings.

John Michael Dunton was arrested in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Stephen Czuleger, who last week found him in contempt after Dunton responded to a grand jury subpoena but refused to answer questions.

Dunton’s lawyer, Robert D. Rentzer, said afterward that Dunton is willing to stay jailed for the 10 months that remain in the grand jury term rather than divulge information that he was assured would be kept secret.

Rentzer would not divulge that information or how it could endanger his client, but he emphasized that Dunton is not fearful of Simpson or anyone close to the former athlete.

In a KTLA-TV interview taped weeks ago but not aired until last Thursday, Dunton said he learned secondhand that two people were involved in the June 12 slayings of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman and that a third person may have witnessed the crime.

Simpson’s lawyers have contended that the murders could not have been carried out by one person, as the prosecution contends. A law enforcement source said Wednesday that although authorities have received several tips suggesting other suspects, none have panned out.

When pressed by reporters to divulge what Dunton knows, Rentzer would only say that what Dunton gave to prosecutors was non-specific and meant to “point the district attorney in the direction.”

Dunton considers it a breach of the confidentiality he was promised by prosecutors that he was subpoenaed before the grand jury, his lawyer said.

The panel is investigating whether Cowlings or anyone else helped Simpson try to flee police the day the football great was to surrender in the slayings. Dunton has no information on that matter, Rentzer said.

The lawyer said Dunton would appeal his case to the California Supreme Court after a district court this week refused to quash his grand jury subpoena.

Meanwhile Wednesday, Santa Ana attorney William M. Walker confirmed that the football great has agreed to grant guardianship of his children to his slain wife’s parents until he “is able to resume his legal and physical custody.”

Sidney Brooke Simpson, 8, and Justin Ryan Simpson, 6, have been staying with Louis H. and Juditha Brown at their Dana Point home.

Times staff writers Jim Newton and Eric Malnic contributed to this story.