34 Lawsuits Have Dogged Defense Witness

A West Los Angeles businesswoman who has suddenly emerged as a key witness in the defense effort to exonerate O.J. Simpson has been sued at least 34 times in recent years on allegations that include defrauding or failing to pay suppliers, customers, landlords, attorneys, a national hotel chain--and her elderly aunt, court records and interviews show.

Mary Anne Gerchas, who purportedly told Simpson’s attorneys that she saw four suspicious men near the murder scene, became a central player in court Thursday as prosecutors scurried to investigate a list of 14 surprise witnesses the defense disclosed during its opening statement.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher A. Darden characterized some of those witnesses as “heroin addicts, thieves, felons . . . and a court-certified pathological liar” in court Thursday morning. But speaking to the press after the close of Thursday’s hearing, Simpson’s attorney, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., downplayed the importance of the witnesses introduced Wednesday.

Citing Gerchas in particular, prosecutors asked Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito for more time to investigate her financial past while several of those who sued her said they were incredulous that she had become such a high-profile figure in the case.

Reached at her business, Mary-Anne Fine Jewelry in the Westside Pavilion shopping center, Gerchas declined comment. “Everybody’s told me not to say anything,” she said.

Late Thursday, Harvey Levin, an attorney for Gerchas, took exception to Darden’s description in court. He said the legal actions against his client had “absolutely nothing to do with O.J. Simpson” and said her credibility in the case is in no way suspect.

Gerchas surfaced Wednesday when Cochran said during his opening statement that she was on a late evening stroll June 12 when she saw four men in knit caps running from the Bundy Street area where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman were killed. Cochran derided the district attorney’s office for turning a deaf ear to Gerchas when she called with the information, claiming that a receptionist in the prosecution’s office put her on hold because she was talking to a psychic on the other line.

But on Thursday, Gerchas’ veracity and business record came under fire as prosecutors countered with a few of her past financial transgressions and even questioned whether the person claiming to be Gerchas was an impostor.

“We have only known of this witness 24 hours,” Darden told Ito. “And already we know she has nine lawsuits pending in the D.A.’s office. In our bad check section, there are $10,000 approximately in bad checks that relate to this person.

“And there’s much more. . . . Your Honor, we are concerned that perhaps this witness is not the person she claims to be,” he continued. “She is not the person--she is not the real Mary Anne Gerchas. There was a hint that perhaps she is not that person. And we’re concerned about that.”

A computer search of court records showed that Gerchas has been sued at least nine times in Los Angeles County Superior Court by diamond importer Louis Pearl and other suppliers, including the Concord Watch Co. and the Westland Shopping Center, owners of the Westside Pavilion and her business landlord.

In addition, records show there have been at least 25 other actions against Gerchas filed in the municipal courts in Downtown Los Angeles, Van Nuys, Santa Monica, West Los Angeles, Culver City and the South Bay. Among the cases against the jeweler:

* A 1991 Municipal Court case in which Genevieve M. Dennis, Gerchas’ elderly aunt, sued to recover $10,000 she loaned to her niece. William R. Pardee, attorney for Dennis, said Gerchas promised to repay her aunt within 30 days but kept stalling until a lawsuit was necessary. He said Gerchas wrote her aunt two $1,500 checks that bounced, and was in court as recently as July 1 but still owes $7,540.

“On a number of occasions, I went over to her business because she promised a payment and when I got to her business, she wasn’t there,” Pardee said, adding that Dennis is about 85. “I’d say she’s made 50 promises to me that she would make a payment and then she hasn’t complied with her promises.”

* A suit last October by the Westland Shopping Center to evict her from the Pico Boulevard mall for failing to pay her rent. Westland’s attorney, Tom Leanse, said his client sued Gerchas at least once before for failing to pay her rent but dropped that action when she agreed to a settlement.

* A December, 1994, Municipal Court case in which the Marriott International chain alleges that Gerchas reneged on a $24,000 bill at the firm’s Century City hotel. Marriott attorney Michael McIntyre said Gerchas failed to pay a bill for a stay that stretched from July 26 through the first week in October while her home was being remodeled because of earthquake damage.

* A 1992 Municipal Court case in which the Wackenhut Corp. won a $12,000 judgment for back pay Gerchas owed the guard at her store. The security firm is represented by the same law firm that also sued and won $18,000 in judgments against Gerchas for three suppliers of earrings, precious stones, pins and other merchandise for her jewelry store.

In many of the cases against Gerchas, attorneys and creditors said that the businesswoman had failed to make payments even after they won an arbitration award or a court judgment.

Pearl, a diamond importer for more than 20 years, said he was forced to sue Gerchas in Superior Court after she continued to renege on a promise to pay off a $30,000, four-carat diamond he gave to her on consignment for a customer. Pearl said such handshake deals are common because the jewelry business relies on “trust and integrity.” Pearl said he has known Gerchas for 12 years, since she served as a manager at a now-defunct jewelry chain.

“When she opened her own business, I assumed I could deal with her in the same way,” he said. But he said Gerchas started making excuses for not returning the diamond, at one point saying her diamond cutter had taken it home and could not be reached because he had a new telephone number and had lost his beeper. Pearl said he waited in front of Gerchas’ store for four days and the diamond cutter never showed.

Now, even after he has won a $20,000 judgment, Pearl said Gerchas has yet to keep up with the agreed repayment schedule. “She hasn’t paid me in a year and a half,” he said.

“Whether or not she saw four guys running from the house, I can’t say,” Pearl said. “But I’d say this much--if I were the prosecution, I’d be happy if she was a defense witness.”

Lois Harnois said she was watching the Simpson hearing when she was nearly bowled over by the disclosure about Gerchas, whom she has sued to recover more than $16,000 for a diamond ring. “My husband was outside and I called him in,” said the Port Hueneme retiree. “He couldn’t believe it.”

Harnois, a Los Angeles native, said she met Gerchas about seven years ago at a jewelry store in the Glendale Galleria and they became friends; she invited Gerchas over for dinner. Harnois said she eventually asked Gerchas to sell a 3.06-carat diamond for her--but she never saw the money.

“She’s given me bum checks, a $3,500 one,” said Harnois, who filed a 1993 Municipal Court action against Gerchas. Even after winning her judgment, she said Gerchas has failed to pay.

Questions about Gerchas are only the latest to swirl around witnesses in the high-profile case. Within days of the murders, self-proclaimed witnesses began emerging to claim that they had seen the crimes committed.

There was a burglar from Northern California who said he was casing houses in the neighborhood when he saw two white men fleeing the scene. His account, initially welcomed by the defense, became the object of ridicule when it turned out that he also had claimed to have spotted kidnap-murder victim Polly Klaas after authorities believe she was dead.

Later, a South African man told The Times that he had seen Simpson at the murder scene grappling with Goldman. But sources say that man failed a polygraph test, and prosecutors do not intend to call him as a witness.

Other so-called witnesses took their stories to tabloids and have helped fuel that industry for months.

But Gerchas has remained out of the public view, as have a number of the new witnesses cited in the defense’s opening statements.

One of them, Chicago lawyer Mark V. B. Partridge, sat next to O.J. Simpson on an airline flight from Chicago to Los Angeles the morning the bodies were found. Partridge said he is scheduled to testify for the defense about Simpson’s frame of mind.

“He seemed to be very upset and concerned about his children,” Partridge said during a phone interview. He declined to give details of what Simpson said during the flight.

Partridge, 40, said he noticed an unbandaged cut on the knuckle of the middle finger of Simpson’s left hand. He said Simpson wrapped the wounded finger in a paper towel during the flight. He said he noticed no other cuts or scratches on Simpson.

Times staff writers Mathis Chazanov, Ted Johnson, Alan Abrahamson, Paul Lieberman, John Hurst, Ted Rohrlich, Stephanie Simon, Rich Simon and Frank Williams and correspondent Scott Collins contributed to this story.