Gunman in O.J. Simpson case to testify Friday

[September 26, 2008]  LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Witnesses in the O.J. Simpson trial have described Michael McClinton waving a handgun and shouting orders like a police officer while others carried away items two memorabilia dealers had arrayed on the bed.

"Stand the (expletive) up, before it gets ugly in here!" says a tape-recorded voice that prosecutors allege was McClinton. "Bag this (expletive) up!"

On Friday, jurors were due to hear from McClinton himself.

McClinton, 50, has acknowledged that he brought guns when Simpson confronted the sports memorabilia dealers in a casino hotel room about a year ago.

McClinton said he kept one and gave one to a friend, Walter Alexander, who told the jury hearing the ongoing armed robbery-kidnapping case against Simpson and co-defendant Clarence "C.J." Stewart that he tucked it his in his waistband and left it there. The two men have said it was Simpson's idea to bring "some heat."

McClinton, a Las Vegas resident who used to work as a security guard, played a crucial role during the tense six-minute confrontation in the cramped room at the Palace Station hotel-casino, according to testimony from some of the men who were there.

Alexander, former co-defendants Charles Ehrlich and Charles Cashmore, meeting middleman Thomas Riccio, and alleged victims Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley have described McClinton as brandishing the gun and giving orders while others took the items.

McClinton testified during an evidentiary hearing that Simpson asked him to display his gun to intimidate Fromong and Beardsley.

Simpson's lawyers have suggested McClinton tailored his story to suit prosecutors after agreeing to plead guilty to reduced charges and testify against Simpson. McClinton awaits sentencing on robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery charges that could get him probation or up to 11 years in prison.

Simpson and Stewart have pleaded not guilty to 12 charges, including kidnapping, armed robbery, coercion and assault with a deadly weapon. They face up to life with possibility of parole if convicted of kidnapping, or mandatory prison time on the armed robbery charge.

On Thursday, Beardsley testified that he didn't want to be part of the proceedings and provided testimony undermining key evidence in the prosecution case.

"I do not want to be here. I've made that clear for the past year," said Beardsley.

But after leading Beardsley through a description of the confrontation, Clark County District Attorney David Roger played a 911 tape in which Beardsley demands police arrive immediately at the Palace Station hotel-casino to find and arrest Simpson.

"We were just robbed at gunpoint by O.J. Simpson and a bunch of other men!" Beardsley exclaims. "And I want 'em arrested!"

Under cross-examination by Simpson lawyer Yale Galanter, Beardsley called Riccio's recordings of the incident a "work of art" and suggested Riccio had time to edit them before selling them to a celebrity Web site and later turning them over to police.

Judge Jackie Glass struggled most of the day to keep jurors from being reminded of Simpson's infamous Los Angeles murder case, ruling that a witness could not mention the former football star's acquittal in the 1994 slaying of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

[Associated Press; By KEN RITTER]

AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report.

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