THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Fuhrman Sues Magazine for Libel

Detective Mark Fuhrman filed suit Monday against New Yorker magazine and one of its writers, contending that he was libeled in a 1994 article that discussed plans by O.J. Simpson’s lawyers to portray him as a “rogue cop” who tried to frame the football great.

The suit, which seeks $50 million in damages, claims that the article by Jeffrey Toobin destroyed the Los Angeles Police Department detective’s reputation as a police officer and exposed him to “hatred, contempt (and) ridicule.”

Toobin and a New Yorker spokeswoman declined to comment on the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Toobin’s story, published months before Simpson’s murder trial began, quoted anonymous sources on Simpson’s legal team saying they planned to attack Fuhrman’s credibility. Fuhrman became a key prosecution witness after he discovered a bloody glove at Simpson’s Brentwood estate that investigators said seemed to match a similar glove found near the bodies of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.

The suit said Toobin’s article indicated that Simpson’s lawyers hoped to convince jurors that Fuhrman planted the glove at Simpson’s home so the detective could “find” it and become “the hero of the case.”

Fuhrman said that in an interview with Toobin before the article was printed, the officer “categorically denied” planting the glove and called the allegation “outrageous.” But the author went ahead and published the false claim anyway, the suit says.

But the suit does not note that the story also questioned the plausibility of the defense’s assertions.

“In fairness to Fuhrman,” wrote Toobin, “the proposition that he planted the glove on Simpson’s property may be just that--unbelievable. . . . By one reckoning, the new strategy may simply be a sign of desperation.”

Fuhrman said he may amend his suit later to name some of Simpson’s attorneys as defendants.