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New Witness May Destroy Rosa Lopez’s Credibility

CNN

February 28, 1995

SHOW: NEWS 11:18 am ET

New Witness May Destroy Rosa Lopez’s Credibility

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BYLINE: GREG LaMOTTE

SECTION: News; Domestic

LENGTH: 1191 words

HIGHLIGHT: Another housekeeper may testify in the O.J. Simpson case, and she is expected to undermine the testimony of Rosa Lopez. A courtroom insidertells of attorneys’ reactions to the presentation of this new witness.

DONNA KELLEY, Anchor: When the O.J. Simpson trial resumes at the top of the hour, there will be more testimony, and the only people barred from listening are the jurors.  CNN’s Marc Watts joins us from Los Angeles with more on the double murder trial.  Marc?
 
MARC WATTS, Anchor: Good morning, Donna.  The subtitle for today’s session in the O.J. Simpson trial could be ‘Maid to Order.’ Judge Lance Ito has ordered two housekeepers to be in court today, and they may have different stories to tell.  With more on that, let’s go live to the courthouse and CNN’s Greg LaMotte.  Greg?
 
GREG LaMOTTE, Correspondent: Well, Marc, late yesterday prosecutor Christopher Darden introduced a women names Sylvia Guerra in the courtroom.  The prosecution says she, too, is a maid in Brentwood who can undercut part of Rosa Lopez’s tes-timony by showing that she lied about her actions the night of the killings.
 
Lopez, testifying on videotape yesterday, said she saw O.J. Simpson’s Ford Bronco parked in front of Simpson’s estate at about the time the prosecution be-lieves the killings occurred.  Lopez’s testimony may be critical to Simpson’s alibi that he was at home at the time of the killings.  Lopez was Simpson’s next-door maid, who says she heard O.J. Simpson on the night of the killings, and then later around midnight says she heard men’s voices coming from Simpson’s property.
 
Now, yesterday, Lopez was cool, calm and collected on the witness stand, but you can rest assured that prosecutor Christopher Darden will try to change all of that today. Last week under cross-examination, she was caught in several incon-sistencies that even Judge Lance Ito made mention of.  Today, Darden is expected to begin his cross examination of Lopez, but first she will answer some more questions from defense attorney Johnnie Cochran.
 
But before Lopez returns to the stand, defense investigator Bill Pavelic will be before the judge.  He will presenting a tape recording and some notes regarding Lopez’s testimony.  The prosecution says those materials may help to impeach the testimony given by Lopez yesterday.  Mark?
 
MARC WATTS: All right, Greg LaMotte at the courthouse.  Thanks much.  We’ll see what happens later today in the courthouse.
 
Well, we may see some sanctions handed out and more fireworks today over the de-fense team’s failure to provide full disclosure about Rosa Lopez.  Judge Ito wants all tapes in courts, all notes and all tapes and notes in court today.  And yesterday, Simpson attorney Carl Douglas admitted one statement had been withheld from the prosecution, but denied the existence of any other notes or tapes.
 
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: What’s your response to their re-quests for these four sanctions?
 
CARL DOUGLAS, Simpson Attorney: I do not think, Your Honor, that it justifies bringing in investigators and having investigators share intimate attorney-client work product with the prosecution.  There are no notes that have not been turned over, there are no tape recorded statements of Ms. Lopez.  I’m not sure, Your Honor, how the prosecution speaks to a witness that they are going to call when there are attorneys present.  We sit in a conference room and basically discuss questions that’ll be asked, answers that are going to be given, but we’re not taking down notes such that it would be the kind of thing that they’re talking about.  So, I’m not sure what they are talking about.  There is no tape recording of Ms. Lopez by any of our investigators.
 
MARC WATTS: But not long after that, Simpson team investigator William Pavelic contradicted Douglas saying he did have notes and tapes.
 
Judge LANCE ITO: Are there any other notes with regards to interviews of Rosa Lopez?
 
BILL PAVELIC: When you say ‘notes,’ I’m not sure what you mean.
 
Judge LANCE ITO: Any rough notes, anything you wrote down, anything handwritten?
 
BILL PAVELIC: I may possibly have some notes in regards to the statement that I took.
 
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, do you have any taped recordings of any statements?
 
BILL PAVELIC: I tape recorded the first statement, which was the July statement.
 
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. All right, Mr. Pavelic, where are these items - these notes and tape recordings?
 
BILL PAVELIC: I believe that it’s either in the office or at my residence.  When I-
 
Judge LANCE ITO: -All right, tomorrow morning, I’m going to order you to come to court with those items.
 
BILL PAVELIC: I shall do my best to get those items.
 
Judge LANCE ITO: All right- no, don’t do your best - have them here tomorrow.
 
BILL PAVELIC: I shall have them here tomorrow, Your Honor.
 
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, thank you.
 
MARC WATTS: Let’s talk some more about the Rosa Lopez situation with one of our regular guests, journalist, the reporter in the courtroom for New York Newsday, Shirley Perlman.  Good morning, Shirley.
 
SHIRLEY PERLMAN, ‘New York Newsday’: Good morning.
 
MARC WATTS: Shirley, yesterday, by most accounts, Rosa Lopez did fairly well un-der direct examination.  What kind of witness can we expect today under cross-examination?
 
SHIRLEY PERLMAN: Well, if Friday is any example, Christopher Darden is expected to really try to expose her as someone who is not telling the truth about this.  So it’s going to be very tense and very confrontational, and- difficult.
 
MARC WATTS: Well, the prosecution had hinted that it was not quite ready to bring on rebuttal witnesses, but it appeared to have succeeded yesterday in pro-ducing Sylvia Guerra.  Did you happen to catch Marcia Clark’s reaction when Syl- Sylvia Guerra was introduced?
 
SHIRLEY PERLMAN: I did not catch Marcia Clark’s reaction, but Sylvia Guerra ap-peared frightened in the courtroom.  Judge Ito seemed surprised, and, of course, the defense table became very, very quiet when she appeared in the courtroom.
 
MARC WATTS: Judge Ito was contemplating sanctions yesterday.  Do you think this revelation from Bill Pavelic about the tape recording of Rosa Lopez’s first in-terview all but ensures that some sort of sanctions or punishments will be is-sued out today.
 
SHIRLEY PERLMAN: I think it may well persuade him to lift the sanctions against the prosecution and allow them to call some of these domestic violence witnesses that they wanted to call earlier.
 
MARC WATTS: All right, Shirley Perlman, New York Newsday reporter in the court-room, thank you for joining us.  Thanks for your observations.
 
SHIRLEY PERLMAN: Thank you.
 
MARC WATTS: We will resume our live coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial again at the top of the hour.  Rosa Lopez returns to the witness stand.  We’ll be back at 12:00 noon Eastern, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time with CNN’s Jim Moret, in which cer-tainly [sic] is shaping up to be a very interesting day in the courtroom.
 
The preceding text has been professionally transcribed.  However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distri-bution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.

LOAD-DATE: February 28, 1995

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Transcript # 877-11

TYPE: Live Report