Simpson sues to get GTE phone records he says will clear him

LOS ANGELES - O.J. Simpson claims records of phone calls between former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her mother the night Nicole Simpson was slain can clear him in the stabbing deaths of Brown and friend Ronald Goldman.

Simpson is asking a judge in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to order GTE to hand over the phone records of his former in-laws, Lou and Juditha Brown. The suit was filed, Simpson said, after attempts to obtain copies of the phone records from the Los Angeles courts, prosecutors and members of his own "dream team" of criminal-defense lawyers failed.

In court papers, Simpson said he needs the records to clear up discrepancies in witness statements about the times the phone conversations occurred.

Those estimates ranged from 9:37 p.m. to 11 p.m. the night of the slayings, his court papers said.

If the women talked at 11 p.m., Simpson said, he has an ironclad alibi: He was riding in a limousine to Los Angeles International Airport to catch a flight to Chicago.

"It's completely bogus," said attorney Daniel Petrocelli, who represented Goldman's father in a civil action against Simpson.

"The evidence from Day 1 has been, through records and witness testimony, that Nicole Brown Simpson last spoke to her mother well before 10 p.m.," he added.

Simpson's suit said his latest lawyers subpoenaed the phone records a year ago in connection with the appeal of a $33.5 million civil verdict holding him legally liable for the June 12, 1994, stabbing deaths of Brown and Goldman.

But GTE refused to hand over the phone records, Simpson's suit said, unless he produced a court order and written consent from the Browns.

A GTE spokeswoman said the phone company was complying with California laws that protect customers' privacy.

"Simpson has attempted to get them from the `dream team,' and they wouldn't give them to him," said Thomas Johnson, an investigator for Simpson's appeal.

The courts have released them as the "personal property" of William Hodgman of the district attorney's office, he added.

Simpson was charged with and acquitted in Los Angeles of two counts of murder. However, he was found civilly liable for the deaths after the trial of a wrongful-death case.

But the $33.5 million verdict has proved to be virtually uncollectable.