Judge lowers boom on O.J. team; Ito fines 2 law-yers for lying

BYLINE: By HELEN KENNEDY 

O.J. Simpson's lawyers lied and willfully broke the law when they tried to hide damaging information, said Judge Lance A. Ito, who slapped the Dream Team yesterday with fines and various other punishments.

"This was, at the very least, a representation made with reckless disregard for the truth, if not a deliberate attempt to mislead    both the prosecution and the court," Ito wrote in a strongly-worded ruling.

When the jurors come back Monday, Ito - as part of the punishment - will tell them the defense lawyers broke the law and it is their fault the jurors have been cooped up in hotel rooms for the last 10 days.

Lead defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. will have to pay a $ 950 fine, as will Carl Douglas, whom Ito has warned once before about violating the law of discovery by holding back information.

Misconduct fines under $ 1,000 do not get reported to the California Bar.

This is the second time the defense has been blasted by the judge for trying to put one over on the prosecution. The first was when Cochran surprised prosecutors with a raft of new witnesses in his opening statement.

The latest uproar stemmed from a July 29 interview conducted by defense investigator Zvonco "Bill" Pavelic with Rosa Lopez, Simpson's star alibi witness, who said she saw Simpson's Bronco parked at home at the time he was allegedly killing his ex-wife two miles away.

The interview produced a written statement and a tape recording, which contained different information. Neither was given to the prosecution.

Prosecutors charged that the defense hid the records because Lopez made easily-disprovable statements - notably that another Brentwood maid, Sylvia Guerra, was at her house June 12 and could back up her story.

Guerra has denied being there and said Lopez claimed Simpson's lawyers would pay her $ 5,000 to give Simpson an alibi.

When the defense belatedly produced the July 29 written statement last week - just before Lopez was to take the stand - prosecutors cried foul.

A stern Ito quizzed the defense team about any other records, but Cochran, Darden and Pavelic all heatedly denied any existed. Only after prosecutor Marcia Clark suggested Ito place Pavelic under oath, did he admit he had an audiotape.

Cochran and Darden claimed they never knew of the tape.

Cochran told reporters late yesterday: "I'm glad it's over. We'll pay and move on."

Ito also ruled that "when or if" Lopez' testimony is ever shown to the jury, he may allow prosecutors to tell the jury about the unethical defense tactics in their closing argument.

That's just one more reason for the defense to scrap Lopez's testimony altogether.

The slight Salvadoran maid finished testifying yesterday, but continued to be vague and confused about almost everything.

The defense did not ask the judge to order Lopez back, indicating they will not fight hard to have her testimony put before the jury.

Prosecutor Christopher Darden continued to demolish her testimony on cross-examination yesterday. But when Cochran got up to ask her more questions and try to mop up the mess, Lopez's answers actually became even more contradictory.

When Cochran - trying to elicite a "no" - asked Lopez if she had told a former employer that "O.J. Simpson is a great guy. I would testify to anything, anytime," Lopez responded: "Maybe I said that, I don't remember."

Cochran tried to tell the court that when Lopez said "I don't know," it meant "no" in her Salvadoran dialect.

But the Salvadoran consulate in Los Angeles released a statement saying that in no Salvadoran dialect do the words "I don't remember" substitute for "no."

Lopez also responded "no me recuerdo" when asked if she ever told Guerra she was being paid by Simpson's lawyers.

Later, she listened to a tape of Guerra saying that Lopez claimed she was being paid and that Guerra could also make $ 5,000 by pretending to have seen Simpson's Bronco.

"I never said that, sir," Lopez replied.

"Sylvia's lying?" Darden asked.

"100 percent, sir," Lopez said.

Though her estimate of when things happened changed almost every time she was asked a question, Lopez stuck adamantly to the core of her story: that she heard Simpson leave his home, that she heard scary footsteps in hard-soled shoes and that she later heard Simpson's voice and felt safer.

Because Lopez was unable to fix a time for these events, prosecutors may be able to argue that Lopez actually heard Simpson creeping back onto his own property after murdering his wife, and that the later conversation was Simpson talking to his limo driver.

Cochran has said Simpson was home chipping golf balls in his yard - but Lopez never mentioned seeing him do that.