CRIMINALIST RETRACTS GLOVE TESTIMONY AIDING SIMPSON : PLAINTIFFS REBUT CLAIMS THAT LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT TAMPERED WITH EVIDENCE TO FRAME EX-FOOTBALL STAR IN SLAYINGS.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

The LAPD criminalist whose earlier testimony about a hole in a bloody glove boosted O.J. Simpson's defense said Wednesday that he had made a mistake.

``The white area there appears to be some sort of debris,'' Dennis Fung told jurors in the rebuttal phase of Simpson's wrongful death trial in Santa Monica Superior Court.

Defense lawyers concluded that the actual crime scene glove had been switched with another Aris Isotoner. That bolstered their claim that Los Angeles police tampered with evidence in a sinister plot to frame Simpson for the June 12, 1994, slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

But Wednesday, Fung said he realized his error after noting that the glove lining is brown, but the anomaly in the ring finger is white.

``Do you now have any doubt this is the glove you booked in evidence?'' plaintiffs lawyer Tom Lambert asked Fung.

``It is the same glove,'' Fung asserted.

Two other witnesses Wednesday backed up Fung's assessment.

Gregory Matheson, assistant director of the Los Angeles Police Department's crime lab, and forensic photographic expert Gerald B. Richards said that the defect was a piece of debris on the surface of the leather when the photograph was taken.

The glove was found lying near Goldman's body and was stained with the slain waiter's blood, Matheson said.

In an angry cross-examination, Simpson's chief lawyer, Robert Baker, accused Fung of backpedaling so as not to hurt the plaintiffs' chances of winning the case.

``Mr. Fung, you find yourself in a bad spot here, don't you?'' Baker asked.

``Yes,'' Fung responded.

The LAPD has ``a lot invested in this case,'' Baker said. ``You had conversations with your bosses at LAPD, and you had to fix it.''

Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki sustained plaintiffs' objections to Baker's remark.

The defense photograph of the glove and its apparent hole had given a surprise boost to Simpson's side, just when it was needed the most.

Over the holiday break, 30 new photographs surfaced, apparently showing Simpson wearing the same Bruno Magli shoes that left bloody tracks at the crime scene.

Fung was the criminalist who had such a difficult time on the witness stand at Simpson's criminal trial. In that case, defense lawyers assailed him for many days on the witness stand about sloppy evidence collection techniques.

On Wednesday, defense lawyers went after Richards, too. Attorney Dan Leonard said that the ex-FBI agent ignored obvious indications of fakery in a photo of Simpson wearing what look to be Bruno Maglis.

But Richards insisted the photo was not faked, eliciting derisive chuckling from Simpson.

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Photo

PHOTO Carmelita Durio leaves the Santa Monica courthouse with her brother, O.J. Simpson, for a lunch break Wednesday.

Associated Press