Preliminary Hearing For Simpson Opens

LAS VEGAS, Nov. 8 -- Few important new facts emerged Thursday in the first day of a preliminary hearing in the armed-robbery case that could send O.J. Simpson to prison for life. But a great deal of trivia was testified about, as witnesses described the tattered milieu of celebrity collectibles and sports memorabilia that make up both the backdrop and the heart of the case.

"Nothing against O.J., but his stuff isn't selling very good," said Thomas Riccio, who when he set in motion the events that brought him to the witness stand was riding high for peddling the diaries of the late Anna Nicole Smith for $500,000. Riccio said he deals in "just all kinds of cool stuff the average person, wealthy person, would say, 'I gotta have it.' " He did not think Simpson's footballs and plaques qualified, nor did the suit Simpson wore the day in 1995 when a Los Angeles jury found him not guilty of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.

But Riccio said he wanted Simpson to autograph a copy of "If I Did It," the book in which Simpson describes in hypothetical terms how he might have killed the two, and so he arranged to bring the former National Football League great into the same room with a man selling what Simpson called "my stuff."

Riccio said that when he and Simpson went to Room 1203 of the Palace Station hotel and casino on Sept. 13, they expected to be greeted by "a guy named Mike Gilbert." Years earlier, Gilbert had gone into business with Simpson peddling autographs and other collectibles through Locker 32, a company named after Simpson's football uniform number. The former partners had fallen out, however, and Gilbert sold the disputed items to Bruce Fromong, the company's former marketing director, Fromong testified.

Fromong testified for four hours. He said Simpson stormed into the room behind four other men "in the style of a military invasion." Two of the men were armed, he said, and one pointed a semiautomatic pistol at him as Simpson shouted, "Why'd you steal my [stuff]?"

"I made the statement 'Mike took it,' " Fromong said, referring to Gilbert. "He said, 'I know Mike took it.' " Fromong said Simpson ordered the men with him to take all the merchandise displayed on the bed, including memorabilia from another disgraced former athlete: a dozen baseball bats laser-etched by Pete Rose with the words "I'm sorry I bet on baseball."

"Those were limited edition," Fromong pointed out.

Fromong's account was picked over by attorneys for Simpson and co-defendants Clarence "C.J." Stewart and Charles Ehrlich, two of the four men who went into the room with Simpson. All face 12 charges including kidnapping, conspiracy and coercion. Three others have pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the prosecution.

Simpson attorney Gabriel Grasso thumped Fromong for calling the television show "Entertainment Tonight" as quickly as he summoned police and for insisting that all of the men with Simpson were black. By every other account, two of the four men were white.

But Fromong's account was broadly reinforced by Riccio, who secretly captured the episode on a digital audio recorder he had hidden in the room. Riccio said the firearm was brandished as Fromong was already surrendering what Simpson claimed. He also introduced a racial element, something that has not loomed nearly as large in the Las Vegas case as in the murder trial.

"I don't know their names," Riccio said, shrugging. "Black guys with pillowcases."

Both witnesses mocked the other person in the hotel room, Alfred Beardsley, who had eagerly put together Fromong and Riccio.

"Mr. Beardsley is a groupie," Fromong said.

Said Riccio: "He's a total O.J. fanatic. He thinks he's in O.J.'s life, and when O.J. talks about him he's like, 'He's a nut. He wants to buy my underwear.' " Simpson, 60, smiled ruefully as the irrepressible Riccio held forth on seemingly whatever came into his mind.

"Believe it or not, there are still all these people who love O.J.," Riccio said.