PARK DECLINES SIMPSON FAME; MAKING MONEY OFF SLAYINGS `DISGUSTING,' LIMO DRIVER SAYS.

Byline: Jeff Kramer The Orange County Register

Talkmaster Larry King still calls once in a while, and a team of disc jockeys back East have taken a shine to him. But for the most part Allan Park's 15 minutes of fame are history.

``It doesn't get me into restaurants any faster,'' said Park, referring to his role in the O.J. Simpson double murder case drama.

And that's just fine with him.

After unwittingly securing himself a place in history as Simpson's limo driver the night of the June 1994 slayings, Park, formerly of Torrance, moved to Santa Catalina Island a few weeks later to escape the media glare.

Now 27, he's still there, managing a package-delivery service and stubbornly refusing to parlay his experience into a lucrative book deal as other key players in the ``trial of the century'' have done.

``The idea of making money off of two peoples' deaths is disgusting,'' Park said the week before last in a rare interview.

Athletic, easygoing and so earnest that Simpson defense lawyers secretly nicknamed him ``Abe'' - as in ``Honest Abe'' - Park exudes the incredulous air of an ordinary guy thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

When he sees TV footage of himself, he says, he feels he's watching someone else. More than three years after fleeing the mainland, he has yet to grant the local newspaper, the Catalina Islander, an interview.

``That's the last thing I want to do is read something about myself in my own paper,'' he says, wincing at the thought. ``Use that spot for someone else.''

There was a time not so long ago that the whole world hungered for details about Park:

About how he rang the buzzer at Simpson's estate on the night of the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. (The Hall of Fame running back was nowhere to be found.)

About how Park later saw a man fitting Simpson's description sneak onto the property.

About how Simpson was sweating heavily in the back of the air-conditioned limo en route to Los Angeles International Airport - odd for a mild evening.

Park's testimony - bolstered in large measure by records of cellular phone calls he made that night from Brentwood to his boss - was used by prosecutors in their effort to show that Simpson had a ``window of opportunity'' in which to commit the slayings.

Park's was the only testimony jurors in the criminal trial wanted reread, a development he found sobering.

The not-guilty verdict, he says, came as a relief because it meant ``it wasn't going to be my name that put him away.'' At the same time, he says of Simpson: ``I hope he realizes that he's a very, very lucky man.''

Looking younger than he appears on television and seemingly on a first-name basis with half of Avalon, Park seems lucky in his own right. Once a week he hops aboard a plane owned by the company he works for, Catalina Flying Boats, and travels to Long Beach so he can play in an in-line hockey league in Torrance.

Park lives in a modest but comfortable apartment near the edge of town with his girlfriend of 2-1/2 years, Dyana Dulin, 30, who manages a clothing store in Avalon. Two dogs, a ferret, a cat and a fish share the premises.

Dulin recalled recently that she wasn't particularly impressed with Park the first time she saw him. He was on television, testifying that he didn't know the difference between Louis Vuitton and Gucci brands of luggage - a major faux pas in her view.

``I thought, how stupid - how could you not know the difference?'' she says. ``I was raised to know the difference.''

Dulin clicked off her TV in disgust but by coincidence met Park in person the following weekend in an Avalon bar.

``Three days later, I was going out with him,'' she says.

Park had been working as a limo driver all of three weeks when he received orders to pick up Simpson on the night of June, 12, 1994.

Though loathe to ask celebrity clients for autographs, Park was prepared to violate his rule for Simpson.

``I'm so into sports,'' Park says. ``I played (high school) football myself. It was just a different feeling to know he was a big NFL star. I wanted to call him Nordberg'' - a reference to the bumbling detective character Simpson played in the ``Naked Gun'' movies.

But instead of getting an autograph, Park became an instant celebrity himself.

A few weeks after the Brentwood killings, Park arrived home from work to find his Torrance street swarming with news crews. The media finally had figured out who he was.

Thinking fast, he cut through a neighbor's back yard, scaled a concrete wall, entered his apartment undetected and grabbed a travel bag. Retracing his steps, he high-tailed it to a friend's home, where he spent the night.

``I caught the first boat to Catalina the next day,'' he says.

He's lived on the island since.