O.J. Case Called Model for Slayings

A man growing desperate over problems with money was inspired by the O.J. Simpson case to plot the murder of his ex-girlfriend and his mother for financial gain, prosecutors alleged Monday.

Paul Carasi deserves to die for luring the two to a Mother’s Day dinner and then, aided by his new lover, stabbing them both to death in a Universal City parking garage in 1995, prosecutors told jurors.

As the trial opened in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Santa Monica, the gulf between co-defendants Carasi and Donna Kay Lee widened.

Carasi and Lee fashioned their plan on the slayings of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, according to the opening statement of Deputy Dist. Atty. John Gilligan, who repeatedly cited the case.

As in the Simpson case, Gilligan said Carasi and Lee planned the attack for a secluded spot, the parking garage of the Universal CityWalk. Then, he said, they stabbed and slashed Doris Carasi and Sonia Salinas to death after dinner on Mother’s Day 1995.

“What was going on at that time? The O.J. case,” Gilligan said. He said that case would be “a recurring theme” in the prosecution of Carasi and Lee.

Both have pleaded not guilty. Lee’s lawyer said he will address jurors this morning, while the Carasi defense will begin later in the trial, expected to last two months.

Gilligan said Carasi and Lee tried to make the crime look like the work of robbers, with Carasi telling police he survived the attack only by pretending to be knocked unconscious.

The plan fell apart when Salinas fought back and Lee was slashed in the stomach. Then, as Lee was trying to ditch the evidence--including the murder weapon--over an embankment on the Hollywood Freeway, she locked herself out of her car.

Bleeding from her wound, which was deep enough to expose her intestines, Lee walked to a call box and summoned help. She told authorities she’d been attacked by robbers.

But the California Highway Patrol officers who came to her aid found the bloody evidence, prosecutors said, including Salinas’ fanny pack and the murder weapon. Inside Lee’s car, they found bloody plastic bags, a Universal CityWalk parking stub for that night and a map marked with directions for getting to the dining and shopping complex.

Lee’s lawyer, Harry Hall, said there are holes in the prosecution’s case, but declined to explain, citing a gag order by Superior Court Judge Leslie Light.

Carasi’s lawyer, Public Defender Ralf Courtney, has repeatedly complained that he has not had time to prepare for trial, indicating he will likely reserve his opening statements until after the prosecution rests. But he said Monday he had not decided when to put on his defense.

Rather than working in concert, the defense lawyers have been at odds, with Hall saying in court Monday that a key point in his defense will be to show Carasi alone had the motive, exonerating his client. He has also filed documents indicating he will allege his client is a victim of battered women’s syndrome.

Carasi and Salinas met at the Bank of America check-processing center in downtown Los Angeles, where they both worked. They eventually had a son together. He later left her for Lee, whom he also met at work.

The breakup led to problems with his mother and Salinas, who eventually had his wages garnisheed for child support, making an already difficult financial situation “an impossible one,” prosecutors said. The monthly payment on his $50,000 credit card debt was $2,500, and he was taking home less than $1,000.

Prosecutors said Carasi’s co-workers will testify that he said he wished Salinas were dead and that he’d “get her one day.”

Prosecutors said that day came on May 14, 1995, after Carasi took his mother, Salinas and their son, Michael, to dinner at the Country Star restaurant in Universal CityWalk. The victims were killed in a spot the size of a parking space, between the car, a stairwell and a wall. The victims had nowhere to run, prosecutors said, and the area was just out of view of the complex’s security cameras.

When detectives arrested Carasi a few days after the slayings, they drove by the Criminal Courts Building on their way to the main jail. Outside was an army of news reporters covering the O.J. Simpson murder trial, which eventually ended in acquittal.

As they drove by the scene, investigators said, Carasi asked, “What would I get if I plead guilty?”