O.J. Jury Takes a Field Trip, Listens to More Tapes

Fri., Sep. 19, 2008 5:05 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Daniel Gluskoter-Pool/Getty Images

The O.J. Simpson jury returned to the scene of the whatever-the-hell-happened today.

The nine-man, six-woman panel and six alternates took a brief look at the Las Vegas hotel room where, according to the prosecution, Simpson and several armed cohorts confronted two sports memorabilia dealers and proceeded to steal nearly $100,000 worth of collectibles on Sept. 13, 2007.

Jurors took turns examining Room 1203 of the Palace Station Hotel and Casino in pairs, each of which spent no more than 30 seconds apiece glancing from bed to bathroom to chair and so on, according to various reports.

Per the Los Angeles Times, Juror No. 12 measured the distance between the bathroom and a chair against the wall and Alternate No. 5 touched the top of the bureau where the man who arranged the meeting, memorabilia collector Tom Riccio, secretly perched a digital tape recorder.

Simpson did not accompany the group, but his attorneys and codefendant Clarence Stewart did. Both are charged with 12 counts of armed robbery, burglary, kidnapping, conspiracy and coercion and could face life in prison if convicted of kidnapping.

The jury also heard on Friday the complete recording that Riccio professes to have made of the confrontation, which the defense has already contended may have been doctored before Riccio—who claims that he regularly tapes business deals, lest anything should go wrong—turned it over to authorities.

Riccio, who first took the stand yesterday, provided commentary along with the audio evidence today, testifying that one of the men with Simpson (later identified as accused accomplice Mike McClinton) "pulled out a gun...and it got crazy from there."

The confrontation lasted about six minutes, Riccio said, and throughout Simpson was yelling at the alleged victims Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong, both of whom have already given similar accounts of what went down in the room.

"Simpson walked in and went right to the front of Fromong and Beardsley and started scolding them," the witness said. "He just stood there and yelled and yelled at them. He said, 'I know you guys. You stole my stuff.' "

"Don't let nobody out of this room," Simpson can be heard saying at one point on the tape.

"I don't have a problem with you, man. Are you mad at me?" Beardsley is heard asking. Beardsley called 911 afterward, reporting that he had been robbed at gunpoint by Simpson and a group of "thugs."

"O.J.'s going to get arrested over this," the dealer also said, several times.

Riccio told the court that, at the time, he was thinking, "This is overkill, big-time overkill. They didn't need to do it this way...They certainly didn't need to bring guns...I never at any time wanted a gun in my room. I am anti-gun."

Simpson's legal team has maintained that the former football star did not ask anyone to bring a gun to the meeting and that he had no idea, before they walked into the room, that any of the five men he was with was armed. So far, only McClinton has been positively identified as one of the men packing heat, although authorities have said at least two guns were seen.