Maddogg’s Real Truth guest writer Langston Carter, OMIG Public Affairs Officer

We listened to an internet broadcast recently of an interview of former FBI agent, Fredric Whitehurst, on the Opperman Report with its host Ed Opperman, in an interview conducted by him in 2015.  Whitehurst is presenting a chronicle of his life inside the FBI, particularly in their crime laboratory.  Ultimately, he was subpoenaed to testify for the defense in the OJ Simpson trial back in 1995 and stated that he was obliged to remain virtually sequestered in a hotel room in the Beverly Hills community of Los Angeles for about a week while waiting for his time to testify.

When finally called to court he sat outside Judge Lance Ito’s courtroom alone in 1995 where the Simpson trial was ongoing while lawyers on both sides debated back and forth about the merits of his testimony.   Below is an excerpt of an ABC news report on its Good Morning America program in 1995 with host Charles Gibson doing the play by play and pitching it to their legal reporter at the time Brian Ross to give further details about the FBI’s Whitehurst and the intent of his potential appearance in the Simpson trial.

What is interesting is that what Gibson and Ross allege to be the topic of discussion in 1995 that Whitehurst intended to convey to the jury regarding FBI agent Roger Martz ‘s damaging testimony turns out to be widely inaccurate as it related to the Simpson case based on Whitehurst’s interview on Opperman’s program in 2015.   We’ll let you make the comparisons for yourself starting with the 1995 ABC report above.

Then listen to the Opperman interview below starting at the 40-minute point into the taped interview where Ed Opperman questions former agent Whitehurst on how he became involved in the OJ Simpson case.  Then listen closely at the 45-minute point where he speaks of the specific problem with the FBI agent who had testified about the EDTA found in the blood of OJ Simpson.  Whitehurst is presumably talking about former FBI agent Roger Martz.

Whitehurst is implying that according to the FBI scientific agents who had approached him at the FBI Laboratory Headquarters in Quantico, Virginia it was they who had performed the research on the critical issue about the blood preservative EDTA and whether it was found in Simpson’s blood or the socks LAPD detectives claimed they found at Simpson’s Rockingham estate.    The agents who’d approached Whitehurst were angered that agent Martz was taking credit for doing research they had actually performed.  They claimed he was not only lying about having done the examination for EDTA but what he was stating about his findings regarding EDTA was false or as Whitehurst states pure “malarkey”.  The agents were quite angry about what Martz had done but too afraid to follow agency policy of filing a complaint against an agent perjuring himself on the witness stand.  Perjury was supposedly an offense not tolerated by the FBI in accordance with a Presidential order as well as the position of the executive director’s office of the FBI.    Thus, it was mandatory that the offense was reported but for fear of injuring their career promotion, the agents who had approached Whitehurst were unwilling to file the mandatory complaint.  The agents who approached Whitehurst to complain to him outside the laboratory did so with the optimism that he would file a complaint which ultimately he did.  Subsequently, as a result of filing that complaint with the inspector general of the USDOJ regarding the testimony of Martz in the Simpson trial, he was subpoenaed by Simpson’s dream team members to come to Los Angeles to testify about what he’d alleged regarding Martz and his erroneous testimony regarding EDTA.

Fredric Whitehurst in US Army completing tour in Viet Nam (L) FBI agent Roger Martz (R)

You get the impression after listening to Whitehurst speak of a man with a deep commitment to truth regardless of the consequences.  That comes through strongly in the Opperman interview and turning back the hands of time that if allowed to take the witness stand in the Simpson trial the strength of his persona was going to be the death knell for the FBI agent Roger Martz but potentially hazardous as well to the reputation of the FBI.   He seems to exhibit a familiar ambiance of believability we saw in a number of returning Viet Nam veterans of that era, something deeper inside that comes out as a result of the unedited and undoctored truths associated with a war-torn experience as Viet Nam was for so many.   Consequently, as a result of whatever courtroom machinations and outside pressures, Whitehurst was not called to testify and thus the reputation of the FBI for the meantime was once again spared.  However, it has been a troublesome thought for OMIG investigators who continue to find so many irregularities regarding evidence in the Simpson trial as to why the upper management of the FBI would jeopardize their brand by allowing sordid characters to impugn the integrity of the United State’s most preeminent investigative agency.

OMIG’s investigators have remained diligently in the trenches examining the irregularities of evidence in the OJ Simpson case and on a number of occasions they have expressed their dismay but not with the LAPD which has had a history of bad faith interactions relative to according justice to all of the residents of Los Angeles, but their dismay has been associated with the FBI.   Why would they allow not only Martz but a former agent, William Bodziak, to get on the witness stand so unprepared to where a closer examination of his remarks renders him as absurd?  Bodziak never bothered to accurately measure the dimensions of OJ Simpson’s feet down at the county jail yet he had plenty of time to take a trip to Italy to affirm evidence related to shoes that he testified were “represented” as belonging to Simpson.   It would be OMIG investigators who would find that Bodziak’s failure to do so is a blemish on his own professional status as well as potentially the integrity of the FBI.  Crime scene photos indicate shoe prints at the murder site that fall within the 11 and 1/2 inch square side walk tiles, or a shoe size of possibly 9 to 9 and 1/2 in the U.S.  Upon acquiring the same shoe sole from the manufacturer in Italy that Bodziak traveled there to receive, OMIG investigators also secured a tracing of Simpson’s foot to compare with the dimensions of the size 46/size 12 SILGA shoe sole.    They would find that Simpson’s foot, highlighted in green above, extends beyond the edges of the shoe sole on four sides of the 12 and 1/4 inch SILGA U2887 shoe sole found on the bottom of the alleged Bruno Magli Lorenzo Model that agent Bodziak tried so hard to put Simpson’s foot into.

The foot print identified within the half circle above was among the crime scene photos taken by the LAPD at the Bundy murder site with the toe of the shoe print on the top line of the 11 and 1/2 inch square side walk tile, and the heel of the shoe sole at the bottom of the line of the same side walk tile.  This photo is what peeked the interest of OMIG (Ocean Medical Investigative Group) investigators to contact and acquire a copy of the same alleged size 46/size 12 SILGA U2887 shoe sole from the Italian manufacturer SILGA GOMMA.

Once OMIG investigators received the shoe sole from SILGA above that was on the bottom of the alleged Bruno Magli Lorenzo model shoe, they ultimately secured a tracing of OJ Simpson’s foot.  As one can see his foot even without the insulation inside the shoe extends beyond the perimeter of the shoe soles of this expensive $200 pair of shoes.

The prints certainly do not match the size required to fit Simpson’s large size 13 foot.    So why would Bodziak place his faith as well as that of the FBI in regard to veracity into the hands of the LAPD?   With Bodziak’s testimony and his appearance as the clean cut, honorable-looking, FBI agent, he was presenting a crucial piece of evidence to the American viewing audience, the alleged Bruno Magli shoe soles.   The appearance of Bodziak in his Brooks Brothers suit provided the ambiance for American viewers to give the FBI agent something that OMIG grants no one, the privilege of presumption regarding the truth.

How does an FBI agent accept “No!” for an answer when he asks a state agency to receive a search warrant to examine for purposes of comparison other shoes in Simpson’s closet?  He had nothing but a tennis shoe whose chain of custody had been broken within 24 hours of the LAPD detective, Tom Lange’s, acquisition of them on June 13, 1994. Lange never followed proper procedure in regard to the LAPD regulations concerning evidence.  Those tennis shoes taken from Simpson’s house on June 13, 1994, were supposed to be deposited immediately with the evidence department of the LAPD. Instead, Lange drove past several police precincts and carried the shoes 50 miles out of the city to his home in the infamous town of Simi Valley, California.  That was the location where the jury acquitted all of the police officers involved in the brutalization of Rodney King that led subsequently to rioting and fires all across the city of Los Angeles.

Nevertheless, Bodziak eagerly went forward with those tennis shoes as if they presumably belonged to Simpson.  Yet as an FBI agent he was not sure or even close to matching the FBI’s standard of certainty with his remark that the LAPD officers who’d given the Reebok tennis shoes to him had “represented” that they in deed belonged to Simpson.  However, the lead detective who initially attained the alleged Simpson Reebok tennis shoes, Tom Lange, did not know their whereabouts or the exhibit number they’d been assigned after June 14, 1994, since he gave them to another employee and still had not deposited them with the evidence department in accordance with LAPD regulations. The transcripts imply that Bodziak was treated as a buffoon in response to his request for a search warrant to assure the verifiability of what he was investigating.  Based on the evidence OMIG continues to uncover, FBI agent Bodziak’s exercise was a tremendous failure and certainly is not warranted in receiving the respect for what the public perceived to be the truth regarding the Bruno Magli shoes.

However, Bodziak presents even a great problem of credibility that raises questions regarding his integrity, rather than his stupidity.  Furthermore, since he took the witness stand as an FBI special agent, it impacts the integrity of the FBI as well.  The shoe sole he’s holding in the above photo to the right displaying the bottom of the sole, when it makes its impression on the ground it looks like the one below in Figure 2.  As you can see the brand, Bruno Magli, is not able to be determined because it is located in that middle portion of the shoe that doesn’t touch the ground because of the raised heel that SILGA incorporates in this particular shoe sole by design when it emerges from its U2887 rubber mold.

This presents a problem from our viewpoint in regard to integrity since former agent Bodziak admits in chapter 15 of a college text book he republished in 1999, 18 years after its initial publication, that the shoe sole manufacturer SILGA not only sold this same sole to the owners of the Bruno Magli brand but SILGA sold them to another company, LORD, shoes which owned 20 various brands sold around the world to which it provided this same SILGA U2887 shoe sole.   Thus, if the raised heel prevents brand identification from being ascertained then how did FBI agent Bodziak determine in a one out of twenty gamble that the brand of shoe that made the infamous prints at the Bundy murder site came from Bruno Magli versus 20 other brands of shoes carrying the same shoe sole?

Former FBI Agent William Bodziak on the right, with his book on the left.

Returning to the issue with former agent Whitehurst and Martz is that Martz had been contacted by one of the prosecutors assisting the Simpson trial, Rockne Harmon.  He intended to put the cabash on the assertions of an author by the name of Stephen Singular who had submitted a proposal to Dove Book’s President, Michael Viner, two months before the Simpson trial started in late January of 1995.  However, after Viner signed a non-disclosure agreement not to divulge anything that Singular was offering in the treatment for the book to be distributed by Viner’s Dove Books which is seen below, Viner did just the opposite.

Stephen Singular (L) His Book LEGACY of Deception and Michael Viner (R) President, Dove Books

Viner was allegedly so worried about withholding evidence he felt the prosecution should be made aware that he and his attorney made a bee-line directly to Deputy LA County prosecutor, Chris Darden’s Office to share with the prosecutor the knowledge that Singular had been sharing with the defense for the prior 3 months regarding Mark Fuhrman and planted evidence.  This occurred during the first week of November 1994 when Darden was fully suspicious of being assigned to handle the two subsequently proven liars by Marcia Clark, LAPD officers Fuhrman and Vannatter.   Singular’s information was that LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman had planted the bloody glove on Simpson’s Rockingham property after going to residence twice during the dark nighttime hours of the murders.  The second time he would return was the early morning of June 13, 1994, around 5:00 AM with Detectives Phil Vannatter and Tom Lange.  According to Singular’s source, Fuhrman would carry the glove in a blue plastic detectives bag that had been picked up with a piece of a stick broken off of Nicole Brown Simpson’s back fence on Bundy.   Singular was told that these two items, the stick and blue plastic bag would be found along with the glove on Simpson’s Rockingham property.   Under cross and direct examination, both Fuhrman and Lange would admit that these pieces of evidence were found on Simpson’s pristine Brentwood property.

What made Singular’s story so believable is that he lived a thousand miles away from where the crime was committed but was providing the defense with information about evidence found with the glove on Simpson’s property that they themselves were not aware during the early stages of the case in August of 1994.  Singular was getting his information from an anonymous person inside the LAPD who was knowledgable about what had taken place that night regarding Fuhrman.  Whenever the information that Singular brought to the attention of the defense was tested the existence of that evidence always proved to be true.

It would be one of the most crucial pieces of evidence that Singular would bring to the attention of the defense that would slip out by means of Viner to the prosecution.  That information came to Singular in Denver by the anonymous LAPD insider about the blood preservative contained in the purple capped vials called EDTA that the anonymous source claimed would be found in certain swatches of blood that the authorities collected from Simpson.  The implication of which was that if that blood evidence contained the preservative EDTA then the blood came from a collection vial that is coated with that anticoagulant, and if it did then someone had planted that blood belonging to Simpson.  In an attempt to destroy this mythical monstrosity whose claim was growing so rapidly and causing great consternation within the D.A.’s Office, Rockne Harmon loudly proclaimed that he would put this absurdity to rest.  Thus, by early February 1995 after stewing for 3 months in the D.A.’s office Harmon announced that he was going to debunk the veracity of these allegations about EDTA being found in any of the blood recovered at the crime sites.

LAPD Westside Detective, Mark Fuhrman (L) and Robbery/Homicide S.I.D. Detectives Phil Vannatter (C) and Tom Lange (R)

Thus, in early February of 1995, Harmon, a prosecutor on loan from Almeda County in northern California announced that he was going to have the FBI laboratory test the blood for EDTA to debunk the myths that this charlatan Stephen Singular had introduced into this case involving OJ Simpson and his trial.  Once the FBI returned with its results Harmon had in mind excoriating Singular and riding him out of town on a rail.  However, Harmon’s volatile attempt exploded in his face when Martz had to give him the bad news that he in deed had found EDTA in the blood samples Harmon had provided.  Little did we know that while agent Martz was attempting to discount the impact of his EDTA discovery on the witness stand anger was brewing within the FBI lab at Quantico as it related to Martz.  It was he who was now considered a charlatan and outright liar in regard to his alleged findings of EDTA.  What is too bad, from our perspective at OMIG, was that Whitehurst was not allowed to attack the integrity of Martz’s testimony.   The residual impact of all of the lies told relative to the Simpson case we believe has been a malicious poison that has seeped into the minds of many persons throughout the nation regardless of their profession.  Where these lies have been intentionally promoted is believed to have poisoned the minds of police officers around the nation and the dangers of which OMIG investigators predicted 20 years ago would impact the lives of young black men in the future.  That prediction has come to be fulfilled with all of the inexplicable deadly assaults on so many African American males by police in petty misdemeanor encounters utilizing what appears to be an excessive and deadly force under the color of authority.  Chalk much of this inexplicable conduct up to the poison promulgated in the Simpson case and the failure of due diligence on the part of the press to conduct a proper investigation relative to what was being handed to them by authorities in L.A.  In the end, their credibility is undermined by the same lies they accepted and lived by the day before.

Deputy D.A. from Almeda County, California, Rockne Harmon.  He participated as a DNA expert for the LA prosecutors but according to the late author Joseph Bosco “A PROBLEM OF EVIDENCE” was only included on a need to know basis and very sparingly at that level by Marcia Clark and Gil Garcetti.

According to Singular, it would be Harmon who would call and vilify him for allegedly allowing Simpson to be acquitted.  We at OMIG would like to think that there was something more rapscallion in Harmon’s call to Singular, that in fact, he may have been thanking Singular in a roundabout manner for saving his integrity from the reckless destruction of the ambitious Marcia Clark and clandestine others.  Harmon it is alleged by the late author, Joseph Bosco, who rarely met with Clark concerning the progress and strategy of the case until the very end of the trial.  With Harmon being from northern California he was probably considered an outsider on the prosecution’s team and a potential threat to their conduct of malfeasance.

If he hasn’t thanked Singular then maybe he should for being alerted to being potentially involved in a yet unrevealed case of obstruction of justice and destruction of an American sports icon.    What is so unfortunate, from our perspective at OMIG, was that Frederic Whitehurst was not allowed to challenge the integrity of Roger Martz’s testimony on the witness stand.   We’d like to know what blame does the FBI acknowledge for their agents’ role in this malady brought on by this on-going fraud promulgated within our society by what was dubbed as the O.J. Simpson trial “of the century”?

Don’t forget you can get these books from OMIG authors and enjoy the documentary Serpents Rising: The OJ Simpson Conspiracy at Amazon Books and Amazon Prime’s Video on Demand or via http://www.serpentsrising.com.