Houseguest Kato Recounts Conflict Over Shared Digs -- Ties With Nicole Simpson Suffered

LOS ANGELES - Nicole Brown Simpson was upset and accused O.J. Simpson of manipulation after he persuaded Brian "Kato" Kaelin to move from her home to a guest house at his estate, Kaelin said today.

Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark, firing pointed questions at her own witness, tried to use Kaelin to portray Simpson as a possessive ex-husband who wanted to keep men away from his ex-wife.

Kaelin lived in a guest house at Nicole Simpson's previous residence and said he had planned to move into a room in the condominium she bought in January 1994 - the building outside of which she and her friend Ronald Goldman died June 12.

Kaelin testified today that Nicole Simpson "was upset" when he moved in at Simpson's instead.

"Did she feel you had betrayed her?" Clark asked.

"She felt I was manipulated," Kaelin said. "Those were her words."

Asked if his relationship with Nicole Simpson changed after that, Kaelin said yes. "It was different. I always liked Nicole, but she wasn't talking as much."

In cross-examination by defense attorney Robert Shapiro, Kaelin said he saw Simpson and Nicole Simpson argue only twice in the time he knew them, and he never saw Simpson strike her. Kaelin said that Simpson, far from being jealous, knew full well that Nicole Simpson had seen other men.

"Did he ever voice any concern about that?" asked Shapiro.

"No," said Kaelin.

"Did he ever show any anger or be upset at the fact that she was

dating other men?"

"No."

Kaelin, 36, is a crucial witness to Simpson. He accounted for Simpson's whereabouts much of the day, but was unable to vouch for him between 9:37 p.m. and about 11 p.m. - the time prosecutors say the murders occurred.

Kaelin testified he had planned to pay Nicole Simpson $450 to $500 for a room at the condominium, and that as far as he knew, no one reimbursed her for the lost income when he moved to Simpson's estate instead.

Clark tried to get Kaelin to say why Simpson might have wanted him at the Simpson estate rather than with his ex-wife.

Kaelin stressed that he and Nicole Simpson were not romantically involved.

"Nicole and I were friends but there was . . . no sexual relationship. We were friends, and I was friends with the children and that was it," he said.

Asked again, Kaelin said: "He didn't say, because of having romance with her. That didn't come up like that because I think it was a given that I wasn't. But he was saying, it wasn't right for you to be . . . where you are going to be in the same house with his children and Nicole."

Clark pressed Kaelin about what Simpson had said. Kaelin finally said of Simpson's fears of a sexual relationship, "It couldn't have been anything else."

Yesterday, Kaelin underwent tough questioning by Clark aiming to show that Simpson had time to commit the murders before catching a flight to Chicago.

She pressed Kaelin about his trip to a McDonald's restaurant with Simpson that night, about thumps he heard coming from an area where police later found a bloody glove, about Simpson's demeanor when he left in a limo for the airport and about blood in Simpson's foyer.

Kaelin testified that Simpson and his lawyers, aware that Simpson was a prime suspect, quickly homed in on Kaelin as the man who might clear him.

They tracked Kaelin down at his friend Grant Cramer's house the day after the slayings.

"O.J. said, `Kato, you know I was in the house,"' Kaelin recalled. But he said he told Simpson then what he said on the witness stand - that he never saw Simpson go into his house after they returned from the trip to get hamburgers.

Kaelin's testimony is crucial because he was the last person known to have seen Simpson before the killings and one of the few to see him shortly after.