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From: Kariana
Date: 12 Jul 2000
Time: 18:12:54
NEWS COMMENTARY July 12, 2000
By Paula Retamosa REAL NEWS SERVICE
A political debate between LA DA Gil Garcetti and challenger Deputy DA Steve Coley hosted by the San Fernando Valley Bar Assn. yesterday, tore into the crux of the corruption scandals pervading the LA political landscape. The hot button topic was the framing of OJ Simpson and accentuated by a public official libelling Simpson as Deputy DA Coley referred to him as a "double murderer" playing golf. In alluding to DA Garcetti dragging his feet on the investigation of the LAPD Ramparts scandal, neither candidate acknowledged that several of the police officers dismissed from the LAPD based on planting evidence at Ramparts were also intimately involved in the search of Simpson's Rockingham estate.
The debate got heated when Coley alleged Garcetti's quid pro quo failure to prosecute the giant LA law firm O'melveny & Myers for overbilling and their incompetent due diligence study permitting a $250 million dollar tax waste when they cleared the building of Belmont High School on a toxic waste site that would have resulted in the poisoning of at least three thousand school kids a year. O'melveny & Myers on the otherhand made sure GTE would not have to turn over another copy of Nicole and Juditha Brown's phone record that could prove Nicole was alive at 11pm as OJ was riding to LAX in a limo. The official copy was sealed before Simpson's criminal trial, never admitted as evidence, and later stolen from his sealed criminal file. In front of presiding superior court judge Larry Fidler, O'melveny argued that GTE would be in violation of CAL public utility code if they turned over the exculpatory phone records. Judge Fidler, who presides over the Ramparts police scandal agreed intimating that it is too late for OJ to clear his name.
Ironically GTE is under investigation by state regulators for violating the same public codes they hid behind in Simpson's legal action, however their motivation in the present investigation appears to be greed for millions realized in illegally competing for lucrative service contracts from UCLA, Dreamworks, and Simon Weisenthal Museum. Judge Ito's wife Captain Margaret York, head of the LAPD Internal affairs investigation of Ramparts a noted spectator at OJ's hearing in Judge Fidler's court on June 12th, was not available for comment.