Ex-Mouseketeer Says Boyfriend Tripped on Pier

Former Mouseketeer Darlene Gillespie took the stand Monday in her boyfriend’s trial and denied allegations that the pair manufactured evidence to win a trip-and-fall civil case against the city of Ventura.

Gillespie, 56, told jurors that her longtime “sweetheart” Jerry J. Fraschilla, 61, stumbled over a loose board on March 4, 1997, while jogging on the Ventura Pier and threw out his back.

“I saw him trip,” she testified. “I immediately came forward to see if he was all right.”

Gillespie, an original member of television’s “The Mickey Mouse Club” and an Oxnard resident, told the jury that she was a registered nurse for 25 years and advised her boyfriend to lie flat on the pier until medical help arrived.

She testified that he has suffered severe back and leg pain as a result of the fall. As recently as last Friday, he had to be given a shot of pain medication after sitting in court all day, she said.

But lawyers for the city and one of its contractors suggested that Fraschilla, a former businessman and ex-Marine, had a preexisting back injury and filed a bogus lawsuit. Fraschilla is seeking unspecified damages.

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For nearly an hour Monday, defense attorneys grilled Gillespie about her boyfriend’s exercise regimen and history of back problems.

She acknowledged that Fraschilla, a stout retiree who moves slowly around the courtroom, was not a frequent jogger before the accident and cannot exercise now. But on the day he was hurt, she said, he was able to run short distances.

“I would say for our age group, he was going at an average pace,” she testified.

The lawyers also suggested that a week after the accident she and Fraschilla tried to manufacture evidence by posing half a dozen pier visitors in photographs at the scene. They suggested that the couple asked passersby to hold up loose pieces of board and point at others. Gillespie denied those claims.

“We didn’t ask people to do this,” she told the jury. She added that several people stopped to assist them as they tried to document the spot where the accident occurred.

Gillespie’s brief appearance in Ventura County Superior Court Monday was three weeks before her scheduled trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on fraud charges.

Fraschilla is awaiting sentencing next week in the same case after pleading guilty to 21 charges, including perjury, conspiracy and securities fraud for his role in an investment scheme.

The couple were arrested Dec. 3, 1997, at their Oxnard home on suspicion of engaging in a fraudulent stock-buying scheme. Authorities said the couple purchased stock in 1992 and 1993 without means or intent of paying for it.

In other testimony Monday, Fraschilla took the stand and told jurors that a month before the 1997 accident doctors had taken X-rays related to some ongoing back pain. But he said the leg and nerve pain he feels now came after the fall--not before it.

“It feels like somebody pulled a string in your back,” he said. “I can’t run. I can’t sit for long periods of time. . . . It hurts.”

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Asked by his own lawyer, Michael S. Duberchin, whether he staged the accident or faked any photographs, Fraschilla said he did not. He explained that he did not see the warped piece of wood that tripped him because the afternoon lighting was poor.

“It was very difficult to see the boards,” he testified.

On cross-examinations, Terrence J. Bonham, who is representing the city, asked a series of questions about Fraschilla’s previous convictions, including the perjury charge, to raise doubts about his credibility.

But Duberchin objected to that line of questioning, stating: “He has admitted this--it serves no purpose but to inflame.” The judge sustained the objection and limited Bonham’s inquiry.

Testimony in the trial continues today and is expected to wrap up Thursday.