30 new photos of shoes in evidence at O.J. trial

John Bacon

01/07/1997

USA Today

FINAL

Page 03A

Plaintiffs in O.J. Simpson's wrongful-death lawsuit dealt a blow to his case

Monday by introducing 30 new photographs that appear to show Simpson

wearing rare Bruno Magli shoes. The shoes have become a central issue in the

civil trial after a defense expert testified a photo introduced earlier of Simpson

wearing such shoes was a fake.

Photographer E.J. Flammer said he recently discovered the photos he took of

Simpson at a football game in 1993. An FBI expert said Simpson's Bruno Magli

shoes matched ones that left bloody footprints at the murder scene of Nicole

Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1994.

Also, former detective Mark Fuhrman says in a Vanity Fair interview that O.J.

Simpson's prosecutors ignored potentially important evidence he says he found,

including a bloody fingerprint at the crime scene and a knife box at Simpson's

house.

FREIGHTER MOVED: The crippled freighter that slammed into a New Orleans

shopping mall on the banks of the Mississippi River last month was pulled free

from the damaged wharf. Fears that more of the wrecked Riverwalk mall would

topple into the river proved to be unfounded. ``Not a brick, not even a feather,

moved off that structure when the ship was pulled out,'' Coast Guard spokesman

Patrick Cuty said. The freighter was guided 18 miles downriver to a shipyard for

repairs. More than 116 people were injured when the Liberian-flagged Bright

Field, carrying 64,000 tons of corn, lost power and struck the shopping area on

Dec. 14. Coast Guard hearings are under way to determine the cause of the

crash.

PRUDENTIAL FINED: A federal judge fined Prudential Insurance Co. of

America $1 million after finding that agents in at least four offices destroyed

documents that could relate to a class-action suit. That suit says agents defrauded

policyholders by ``churning'' their accounts, or persuading them to use the cash

value of older policies to finance more expensive ones. Federal judge Alfred

Wolin could approve a settlement next month under which 10.7 million people

who bought policies from 1982 to 1995 would be reimbursed up to $1 billion.

SILENCE FOR JONBENET: Classmates of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey shared

a moment of silence upon returning to High Peaks Elementary School for the

first time since she was found slain in her Boulder, Colo., home Dec. 26.

Psychologists helped students deal with grief and fears about the former Little

Miss Colorado's death. The girl's body was found in the basement of the family's

home about eight hours after her mother said she found a ransom note

demanding $118,000. Police hope to interview her parents, John and Patricia

Ramsey, this week.

Another day of celebration

Three Kings Day: Fourth-grader Magalin Swaby, dressed as a queen, celebrates

the 20th annual Three Kings Day Parade in New York. The parade, an East

Harlem tradition, had its origins in the biblical story of the three kings who

traveled from Africa, Mesopotamia and Asia, bringing gifts for the Christ child.

ALSO MONDAY . . .

RAY HOSPITALIZED: James Earl Ray was hospitalized in Nashville in fair

condition with an undisclosed illness. Ray, 68, was treated Dec. 22 for liver

disease but returned to prison Dec. 30. He is serving a 99-year sentence for the

1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

DU PONT TAPES ALLOWED: Taped conversations between John E. du Pont

and police after the shooting death Jan. 26 of Olympic wrestler David Schultz

may be used in the millionaire's murder trial because du Pont wasn't under arrest

at the time, a judge ruled. Du Pont conversed with police for two days from his

barricaded home.

BOMBER CASE: A Birmingham, Ala., judge postponed sentencing for Walter

Moody Jr., who killed a federal judge and masterminded a wave of mail

bombings that inflamed racial tensions in the South in 1989. More time is needed

for a pre-sentence report, officials said.

Crown Heights stabbing case back in court

A federal trial on civil rights charges opened for Lemrick Nelson, 21, more than

four years after he was acquitted in a New York state court of stabbing a Jewish

scholar to death in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section. Nelson, who is black, is

accused in the 1991 slaying of Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, during rioting that

erupted after a car in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect's motorcade careened onto a

sidewalk and killed a 7-year-old black child. Rosenbaum had nothing to do with

the accident. A jury acquitted Nelson in 1992, then threw a party with Nelson as

the special guest. Amid pressure from politicians and Jewish leaders, Attorney

General Janet Reno agreed in 1994 to seek civil rights charges against Nelson

and Charles Price, 43, accused of exhorting onlookers at the accident scene to

attack Jews. Both could face life in prison if convicted.

Contributing: Jonathan T. Lovitt , Shannon Tangonan, Ron Franklin and Susan

Gvozdas

PHOTO, B/W, G. Andrew Boyd, The Times-Picayune via AP; PHOTO, B/W,

Adam Nadel, The Associated Press; PHOTO, B/W, AP