Simpson Loses Bid for Phone Records

O.J. Simpson on Monday lost a second bid to obtain records he says can pinpoint the time his ex-wife spoke on the phone with her parents on the night--exactly six years ago Monday--that she and a friend were slain on the steps of her Brentwood condo.

Simpson was acquitted of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman but was held liable for their deaths in a subsequent civil trial. He was seeking the phone records, which he says prove his innocence, to help overturn the $33.5-million wrongful death judgment against him.

On Monday, Simpson’s new lawyers took their pleas to Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, who likewise refused to order GTE to release the Browns’ phone records. Fidler told Simpson lawyer Douglas McCann that there was “absolutely no basis for the relief sought.” The matter, the judge said, is “finished as far as we’re concerned in this court.”