Simpson Prosecutors Allege History of Abuse : Hearing: They want judge to admit reports as evidence. Defense claims the stories are inaccurate or irrelevant.

In explosive courtroom arguments and legal papers unsealed Wednesday, prosecutors in the O.J. Simpson murder case presented a chilling chronicle that purports to detail a violent 17-year relationship between the accused former athlete and Nicole Brown Simpson before, during and after their marriage.

The alleged incidents began in 1977--the year Simpson met 17-year-old Nicole Brown--and continued up to just days before she was killed, prosecutors said, trying to persuade a judge to admit the evidence into Simpson’s trial for murder. Many of the episodes have never before been disclosed. They include allegations of humiliation, stalking and beatings on a New York street corner, in the back seat of a limousine, in hotel rooms and at least once during sex.

A few months before her death, Nicole Simpson told her mother that Simpson was stalking her, prosecutors said. “I’m scared,” Nicole said, according to the prosecution papers unsealed Wednesday. “I go to the gas station, he’s there. I go to the Payless shoe store, and he’s there. I’m driving and he’s behind me.”

Just five days before she was murdered, Nicole Simpson contacted a Santa Monica battered women’s shelter to say that she was being stalked and that the stalker was O.J. Simpson, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lydia Bodin. Documents detailing that call to the shelter hot line were turned over to prosecutors Wednesday. Those documents represent the clearest evidence to date that Nicole Simpson feared for her life in the days before she and Ronald Lyle Goldman were slashed and stabbed to death outside her Brentwood condominium.

O.J. Simpson has pleaded not guilty to those murders. On Wednesday, Simpson’s lawyers contended that the incidents of alleged abuse were irrelevant to the murder charges and said that many of the allegations were inaccurate and made by unreliable witnesses.

“Before you rush to judgment, let’s have cross-examination,” said Robert L. Shapiro, one of Simpson’s lead attorneys. “Let’s have evidence under oath.”

In his presentation to Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito, defense lawyer Gerald F. Uelmen characterized many of the altercations as minor disputes in a sometimes “bumpy marriage.” Their arguments, he said, were “no more than usual.”

Prosecutors strongly disagreed. “This is a murder case,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott Gordon, a former police officer who now specializes in prosecuting defendants charged with harming women and children. “This murder took 17 years to commit.”

Some of the allegations disclosed Wednesday are drawn from a list compiled by Nicole Simpson in preparation for her divorce proceedings and feature her own recollections of beatings as early as 1977. Others come from a variety of witnesses, many of whom say Nicole Simpson confided to them details of the abuse she claimed to have suffered at the hands of her husband. And prosecutors also revealed that they recently seized three letters from Simpson to his ex-wife apologizing for beating her in 1989, an incident that Simpson publicly downplayed at the time and to which he pleaded no contest in court.

Wednesday’s session was held in order to determine how much evidence of spousal abuse prosecutors may use in their attempt to convict Simpson of murder. But while Ito has yet to rule on the admissibility of the evidence, prosecutors also put the defense team on notice that if Simpson takes the stand or attempts to call witnesses to testify about his good character, government lawyers have dozens of allegations and witnesses that could be used to undermine his defense.

So sensitive was the nature of the material that the hearing did not proceed until the jury was sequestered at an undisclosed location. For the public, however, the hearing may leave Simpson’s reputation permanently tattered, even if he ultimately prevails at trial.

“Regardless of Ito’s ruling on this evidence and the outcome of this trial,” said UCLA law professor Peter Arenella, “the public’s perception of Mr. Simpson will never be the same after this hearing is concluded.”

In their comments and their legal papers, prosecutors said their case hinges on the violent relationship between Simpson and his ex-wife. It was that relationship that provided Simpson with the motive to kill his victims, according to the government lawyers, who characterized the case as a “domestic violence case involving murder, not a murder case involving domestic violence.”

“Abuse and control was the dominant attribute of the relationship between defendant and victim,” prosecutors said in their motion. “Understanding this dynamic is the only way the jury can understand the true facts of this case and render a just decision.”

Bodin, who along with Gordon was brought aboard the prosecution team to handle this portion of the case, sternly rejected Uelmen’s characterization of the Simpsons’ relationship. “This isn’t a bumpy marriage,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “This is out-and-out denigration and public humiliation.”

As Uelmen and prosecutors listed each of the incidents, a detailed picture of the troubled relationship between O.J. and Nicole Simpson emerged for the first time, debuting in a courtroom tense with anticipation and packed with Nicole Simpson’s relatives. A move by Simpson’s lawyers to exclude members of her family from Wednesday’s hearing was denied by Ito after Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Darden brusquely labeled that request “a grave injustice, an insult to the families.”

The family sat through the hearing without any visible display of emotion, although Denise Brown, one of Nicole Simpson’s sisters, took copious notes on a yellow legal pad. At one point, another sister appeared to fight back tears.

For his part, Simpson at first sat stonily as Uelmen listed each of the alleged incidents and argued that they should not be presented to the jury. Later, however, Simpson shook his head as prosecutors described in detail the incidents that they say prove he controlled and humiliated Nicole Simpson throughout their marriage. During part of the presentation, Simpson leaned toward one of his attorneys and made a laughing remark while Bodin was speaking.

Later, defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. said Simpson was not making light of the proceedings when he laughed. “He was saying: ‘Why is she saying that?’ ” Cochran told reporters, adding that his client was amazed by some of Bodin’s assertions.

Some of the incidents discussed Wednesday had already been made public. In 1985, for instance, police responded to the Simpson home to find Nicole Simpson crying and O.J. Simpson admitting that he broke her car windshield with a baseball bat. And in 1989, Simpson pleaded no contest to spousal battery. But new details about those and other altercations were presented in court for the first time Wednesday.

Regarding the 1989 incident, Uelmen said that Simpson now admits to slapping and punching his wife during a New Year’s altercation. At the time, Simpson publicly dismissed its seriousness, saying “we were both guilty,” and described it as “no big deal.”

But prosecutors said they obtained letters from O.J. Simpson to Nicole when they drilled out a safety deposit box belonging to her late last year. That box also contained photographs of a battered Nicole Simpson, a will and newspaper clippings about the 1989 beating, prosecutors said.

“Let me start by expressing how wrong I was for hurting you,” one letter begins, according to prosecution papers unsealed Wednesday. “I’ve never been more disappointed in myself than I am now,” states another of the letters, which are replete with spelling and grammatical errors.

In addition to the new details about the 1989 fight, a number of other incidents came to light during Wednesday’s hearing.

A list of abuses prepared by Nicole Simpson in preparation for divorce proceedings, for instance, includes several incidents of violence in the early years of their relationship.

“Early in first year 1977 in San Francisco after his baby died, I found an earring in my apartment bed in Beford. I accused O.J. of sleeping with someone. . . ,” Nicole Simpson wrote, according to the prosecution motion. “He threw a fit, chased me, grabbed me, threw me into walls. Threw all my clothes out of the window into the street three floors below. Bruised me.”

In that same document, Nicole Simpson described other instances of abuse. At one point, Simpson “continued to beat me for hours as I kept crawling for the door,” she wrote. He “called my mother a whore and pretended to call her and tell her that.”

In 1986, a doctor treated Nicole Simpson for injuries she said she suffered in a bicycle accident. But that doctor, according to authorities, had doubts about that explanation and believed the cause of the injuries might have been abuse.

On Feb. 3, 1989, a month after he struck her at their Brentwood home, Simpson submitted a letter to Nicole through his lawyer stating: “If I ever willfully inflict physical injury on you hereafter, I hereby agree that the prenuptial agreement between you and me shall be null and void.”

According to prosecutors, Nicole Simpson’s feelings of helplessness were reinforced by her concern that police would not come to her aid. In a footnote to their motion, prosecutors explain why: “Members of the . . . LAPD frequented (Simpson’s) home, often utilizing the pool and tennis courts.”

At the request of police officers, Simpson appeared at a Christmas party, and when they asked for his autograph on footballs, he agreed, prosecutors said. A police spokesman declined to comment on that allegation.

After O.J. Simpson and his wife were divorced in 1992, they made an attempt at reconciliation. Although the exact dates are unclear from the prosecution motion, Simpson allegedly was spotted “mooning around” his ex-wife’s home, looking in the windows and sometimes leaving flowers in the middle of the night.

One night while looking through the window, Simpson allegedly spotted his ex-wife during an intimate moment with Keith Zlomsowitch, a restaurateur whom she was dating and who testified before the grand jury last summer. Simpson later confronted the couple, but his lawyers Wednesday maintained that their client showed considerable restraint in that instance by not lashing out violently because of what he had seen.

One of the splashiest allegations detailed in the court papers prepared by prosecutors came from a witness who claimed that Simpson once told him that he would cut off the heads of his ex-wife’s lovers if he caught them driving his cars.

But that witness is an actor named Eddie Reynoza who surfaced during the Michael Jackson investigation claiming to have information that Jackson had molested children.

His credibility, like that of some other witnesses, came under sharp attack by Simpson’s defense attorneys. Uelmen noted that Reynoza has injected himself into previous investigations and accused him of trying to advance his film career by offering information about the Simpson case.

Uelmen led the defense attack on the alleged spousal abuse evidence Wednesday, hammering away at what he said was the irrelevance of many of the allegations and the unreliability of others. Regarding the accusations that Simpson and his wife on several occasions argued in public and that Simpson broke pictures and threw Nicole Simpson’s clothes out of their house, for instance, Uelmen questioned what light those allegations, even if true, shed on the murder charges.

“It gets us nowhere,” Uelmen said over and over, as he listed dozens of separate allegations or comments about abuse or incidents in which Simpson allegedly mistreated Nicole Simpson.

Responding to other allegations--such as comments by Nicole Simpson to friends and relatives that she was being followed by her ex-husband after their divorce--Uelmen said rules against admitting hearsay evidence should prevent jurors from learning of those comments.

There is, however, an exception to that rule allowing for admission of statements that are characterized as “excited utterances” because people are thought to be less inclined to lie in a moment of intense stress. Based partly on that theory, prosecutors want the jury to hear Nicole Simpson’s impassioned plea for help on Oct. 25, 1993, when she called police as a man she identified as O.J. Simpson tried to break down her door.

Anticipating that argument, Uelmen said the 911 tape was different from most excited exclamations in that it goes on for 14 minutes instead of lasting just a few seconds. He also argued that the incident was irrelevant to the murders because there was no violence in the 1993 altercation.

This was “a very loud argument between two people,” Uelmen said.

Prosecutor Bodin, who detailed the alleged incidents of abuse one at a time, maintained that all were linked by Simpson’s desire to control Nicole Simpson.

“There is a theme of physical violence . . . that weaves itself through the life of Nicole Brown Simpson,” Bodin said. “It is consistent, it is vicious, it escalated to other forms of abusive behavior. And it is but the prelude to what ultimately was a homicide.”

The hearing on domestic abuse continues today, and prosecutors said they expect more disclosures. As Wednesday’s session ended, Darden announced: “We have received evidence of another very, very significant incident of domestic violence.”

Times staff writer Henry Weinstein contributed to this article.

* THE SPIN: The battered-husband defense paid off in Van Nuys case. B1

The Simpson Case (Southland Edition, A21)

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Chronicle of Alleged Abuse

Prosecutors in the O.J. Simpson case for the first time Wednesday laid out a detailed history of physical and mental abuse that they claim Simpson inflicted on Nicole Brown Simpson before, during and after their marriage. Some of the allegations are from a memo Nicole Simpson prepared for her lawyer in preparation for her divorce; others come from O.J. Simpson’s letters, a 1989 court case and interviews with friends, relatives and acquaintances. Among the alleged incidents recounted in the prosecution brief that was unsealed:

* 1977: During their first year together in San Francisco, Nicole, then 17, found an earring in her apartment bed and “accused O.J. of sleeping with someone. . . . He threw a fit, chased me, grabbed me, threw me into walls. Threw all my clothes out of the window. . . . Bruised me.” Source: Nicole Simpson’s memo.

* Undated: After Nicole and O.J. Simpson left a friend’s party in New York, he allegedly beat her for several hours, starting on a street corner and continuing at a hotel. He “continued to beat me for hours as I kept crawling for the door.” She also said he hit her while they were having sex. Source: Memo.

* Undated: While at their Brentwood home, Simpson allegedly beat Nicole and locked her in the wine closet. He watched television while she begged to be released. Source: The memo and Nicole Simpson’s subsequent conversations with her attorney and her sister Denise.

* Undated: After a track meet in San Jose, Simpson allegedly “backhanded” Nicole across the head, forced her to get out of the car and left her stranded late at night at the side of a road. Source: Memo.

* Undated: Simpson became enraged after Nicole’s sister Denise told him he took Nicole for granted. He allegedly grabbed Nicole’s clothes from her closets, broke pictures of family members and then threw Nicole, Denise and a male friend out of the house. Source: Denise Brown.

* 1986: Simpson allegedly beat Nicole at home--”tore blue sweater and blue slacks completely off me.” Source: Memo. Prosecution says it has obtained photographs of the torn clothing.

* 1986: Simpson allegedly smashed Nicole’s white Mercedes with a baseball bat. She said he did it because she was late after visiting a friend. Source: Memo. Prosecution also says that Westec Security and Los Angeles Police Officer Mark Fuhrman responded to Nicole’s telephone call for help.

* 1988: Simpson allegedly beat Nicole after a gay man kissed their son, Justin. “O.J. threw me against the walls in our hotel and on the floor. Put bruises on my arm and back. The window scared me. Thought he’d throw me out.” Source: Memo.

* Jan. 1, 1988: After returning home from seeing “Disney on Ice” with her daughter, Sydney, her mother, Juditha, and a sister, Nicole wrote that she found Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings drunk. Simpson accused Nicole, then two months pregnant, of leaving him out. He allegedly shouted repeatedly, “You’re a fat pig. . . . You’re disgusting. You’re a slob. . . . I want you out of my ------- house.” Source: Memo.

* Jan. 1, 1989: Police came to the Simpsons’ house after Nicole called 911 and said she had been beaten. She ran from the bushes wearing only a bra and sweat pants, and told officers that Simpson had beaten her. Simpson ultimately pleaded no contest to spousal battery. Source: Los Angeles Police Department records, court records, O.J. Simpson letters obtained by prosecutors.

* 1988 or 1989: Simpson allegedly struck Nicole in the face in the back seat of a limousine while en route from a Rodeo Drive nightclub to their Brentwood home. Source: Limousine driver Alfred Acosta interview with prosecutors.

* Summer of 1989: While at a bar, Simpson, after having several drinks, allegedly “grabbed Nicole by the crotch and shouted, ‘This belongs to me. This is where my children come from.’ ” As they were about to leave the bar after 2 a.m, Nicole gave the keys to Simpson’s Rolls-Royce to another man and asked him to drive because Simpson was drunk. Simpson became enraged because he was not allowed to drive and allegedly slapped Nicole in the face two or three times. Then, Simpson, sitting in the middle of the front seat, allegedly “reached across Nicole, opened the passenger door and pushed her from the moving vehicle. Nicole fell to the pavement.” Source: Denise Brown and Julienne Hendricks, a friend of Nicole.

* Oct. 25, 1993: Simpson allegedly kicked in the rear door at Nicole’s condominium, entered and threatened her verbally, leading to a 911 call that was broadcast last summer. Source: Police records.

* 1993: Simpson allegedly hid in the bushes at Nicole’s house and watched her have sex with another man. Source: Grand jury testimony of Keith Zlomsowitch.

* June or July, 1993: Nicole allegedly told friend D’Anne LeBon that she lived in fear of Simpson. “She told LeBon, ‘Everywhere I go . . . he shows up. I really think he’s going to kill me.’ ” Source: Prosecution interview with LeBon.

* March, 1994: Simpson showed a friend, Bill Thibodeau, a side alley near Nicole’s house, telling him it is the “secret way.” Simpson allegedly said, “Sometimes she doesn’t even know I’m here.” Source: Prosecution interview with Thibodeau.

Researched by Times legal affairs writer HENRY WEINSTEIN