FUHRMAN ON THE AIRWAVES; SIMPSON TRIAL WITNESS HOSTS CALL-IN SHOW.

Byline: Nicholas K. Geranios Associated Press

Mark Fuhrman is no longer a police officer, but the key figure in the O.J. Simpson murder trial can't seem to get away from crime - or the limelight.

Fuhrman has a new weekly radio call-in show in Spokane - about 100 miles west of his Idaho ranch - that focuses on crime. And he has a new book coming out, about a 23-year-old unsolved murder among Connecticut's elite.

``Crime interests everybody,'' Fuhrman said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

But the crime that appears to most interest his callers is the 1994 murders of Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman - and the subsequent sensational trial of Simpson, the football star turned actor and pitchman.

Many of Fuhrman's callers have an encyclopedic knowledge of the case.

One recent Thursday afternoon, ``Joan'' from Santa, Idaho, blamed Simpson's 1995 acquittal on Judge Lance Ito's police officer wife.

``I think she's the No. 1 person responsible for O.J.'s smiling on the golf course,'' said the indignant Joan.

``I tend to agree,'' Fuhrman said. ``You can kind of tell that when you see them walk. I'm surprised he doesn't walk two paces to the rear.''

Support from callers

Many callers offer support to Fuhrman, who moved to Idaho after leaving the Los Angeles Police Department in disgrace.

Fuhrman was the officer who found the infamous bloody glove at the Simpson murder scene. But he was discredited after testifying he had not used the racist slur ``n-----'' in 10 years. Taped interviews with an aspiring screenwriter showed that he had, setting the stage for his no-contest plea to a perjury charge and for defense claims that Simpson was the victim of a racist police conspiracy.

A lot of people use the term, said ``Cathy,'' a caller from Spokane.

``I'm 42, and I can't believe there would be a person my age who has a kid or something who hasn't said that word,'' she said.

``It never should have been brought into the case,'' Fuhrman agreed.

After leaving L.A.

After leaving the police force, Fuhrman - a Northwest native who grew up in Eatonville, Wash., near Tacoma - moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, where he worked as an apprentice electrician and snagged some media attention for punching out a news photographer.

He also published a best-selling book, ``Murder in Brentwood,'' about the Simpson case, and embarked on a nationwide publicity tour.

``I'd prefer to be anonymous, a face in the crowd, but that isn't the way it turned out,'' Fuhrman says.

In January, Spokane talk-radio station KXLY offered him a three-hour weekly show, paired with local talk-show veteran Mike Fitzsimmons to interview law enforcement officials and take listener calls.

``The Crime Show'' now is heard only locally, though producers have hopes of syndicating it.

Simpson not a fan

Simpson is not a fan.

``I think that's one of the problems they talk about that's dividing our country,'' Simpson told ESPN recently. ``You see Mark Fuhrman's doing a radio show.''

``You can go outside mental institutions and hear the same drivel,'' Fuhrman said of Simpson's remark.

``People who want to side with him I don't want on my side,'' he added.

``I get thousands of letters that praise me. Four were negative,'' he said. ``Simpson spelled a lot of words wrong in the four of those.''

Fuhrman, a tall man with a military bearing, seems relaxed in an interview at the studio. He has a sense of humor about his role in the latest ``trial of the century'' and his life since then.

Holding up a fat letter mailed to him at the radio station, he presses a corner of the missive to his forehead and closes his eyes.

``He knows where the knife is. He knows where the clothes are. He's drawn me a map,'' Fuhrman intones.

``We created a hobby for them,'' he says of obsessive Simpson trial buffs, who flock to his book signings.

An early edition of his radio show focused exclusively on the Simpson case, a topic Fuhrman hopes to avoid in future.

``Dee'' from North Carolina, who learned about the show on the Internet, called long distance to say he'd have acquitted Simpson.

``I don't think you have much experience to make that determination,'' Fuhrman retorted. ``Considering you did not touch or feel any of the evidence, considering you probably missed part of that trial you don't even know you missed.''

Fuhrman is not above a little name dropping on his show.

``I'm in New York, in Elaine's, eating with my agent and Geraldo (Rivera) comes in and sits with me,'' he tells his audience at one point.

``We have a friendship going,'' Fuhrman says of Rivera. ``He's a decent family man.''

Defending Oprah

Of TV talk-show host Charles Grodin: ``Chuck's a good guy.''

When caller ``Connie'' says she would never watch Oprah Winfrey's show again because she felt the TV talk-show queen was rude to Fuhrman, he defends Winfrey.

``She's a nice lady, a professional,'' he says. ``I would do her show again.''

Fuhrman was hired because of his celebrity and his expertise on crime issues, says Brian Paul, KXLY program director.

``He has a good personality on the air. He sounds good,'' Paul says.

But the show has its critics.

``This guy is an admitted racist. He perjured himself in a court of law in a murder trial,'' says caller ``Ron'' from Spokane.

``Who's your next call going to be, Richard Butler?'' asks ``Dick'' from Inchelium, referring to the leader of the white-supremacist Aryan Nations, who also lives in northern Idaho. ``There's nothing worse in our society than overt racism.''

After the success of his Simpson book, Fuhrman took a suggestion from celebrity writer Dominick Dunne and examined the 1975 golf-club beating death of 15-year-old Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Conn.

Fuhrman's new book, ``Murder in Greenwich,'' due out in May, will name the killer and detail mistakes by local law officers, he says.

Connecticut officials scoff at Fuhrman's claims.

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Photo

PHOTO Ex-LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman talks with a caller on KXLY-AM (920) radio in Spokane, Wash.

Associated Press