… In court, LAPD criminalist Andrea Mazzola, 34, took the stand and described her role collecting evidence at the Rockingham crime scene and at O.J. Simpson’s house. Prosecutor Hank Goldberg asked about her credentials in response to attacks from defense lawyers that she lacked the experience to collect sensitive DNA evidence.
Though Mazzola is referred to as a trainee, she worked for 18 months at the Kern County District Attorney’s office as a criminalist in toxicology. She has additional experience working at a private lab and studied criminology in college, according to her testimony.
Goldberg attempted to prove that Dennis Fung, Mazzola’s supervisor, received a vial of Simpson’s blood on June 13 at Simpson’s house. During cross-examination of Fung, defense lawyer Barry Scheck had shown a videotape in which Fung’s hands were empty as he was leaving the house that day. Fung then said the blood was in a garbage bag that Mazzola was carrying.
To rehabilitate Fung’s testimony, Goldberg showed Mazzola the videotape of her walking with Fung and carrying a trash bag. Although she could not definitively say she remembered carrying the blood vial in the bag, she ruled out any other explanation.
In cross-examination, defense lawyer Peter Neufeld accused Mazzola of altering crime scene reports to make it look as though Fung had collected key evidence. Neufeld attempted to belittle Mazzola’s education and experience. He pointed out that she was still on employment probation June 13, when she reported to the crime scene. …
… Mazzola spent the day under cross-examination, testifying about her role in the collection of blood samples from the Bundy and Rockingham crime scenes. Neufeld also questioned her about Dennis Fung’s role in collecting the crucial physical evidence.
Mazzola said she collected most of the blood from both crime scenes, some of the time without Fung supervising her – a much different story than the one Fung told the grand jury in July. At the time, he said that he collected most of the blood stains. Mazzola supported Fung’s testimony that the two worked as a team.
Neufeld tried to portray Mazzola as incompetent, using a videotape produced by prosecutors. The tape showed that while demonstrating the collection of evidence, Mazzola rested her hand on dirty pavement; wiped a tweezers with the dirty hand; rested her knees on the dirty pavement; brushed her gloved hand on the dirty knee; and dropped several swabs.
In another effort to portray her as inept, Neufeld questioned Mazzola on several points including her use of one cotton swab to test for blood on three different areas of Simpson’s Ford Bronco. Mazzola admitted she had been trained to use separate swabs for different areas but that Fung told her to use one swab on all three areas.
Mazzola conceded that mistakes could happen when collecting vital evidence from the scene of a crime. She also admitted that inadvertent mistakes could be made by crime investigators at the scene which might not be noticed at the time they were made.
“So you really can’t say … that you have never made any mistake at the few crime scenes that you have participated in, can you?” Neufeld asked.
“That’s true,” Mazzola replied.
The defense is trying to show that vital blood evidence could have been contaminated by the collection procedures employed by Mazzola and Fung.
But Mazzola denied that anyone in the police crime lab would alter evidence. The defense has suggested that police tried to frame Simpson in the murders of his former wife and Ronald Goldman. …
…The defense continued to try and portray Mazzola as an inexperienced and incompetent investigator and focused on the vial of blood taken from Simpson on the day after the murders.
Mazzola acknowledged she never saw the vial of blood at Simpson’s home. Nor, she said, did she even know that she was carrying it out of Simpson’s house in a plastic bag, as criminalist Dennis Fung previously testified she had done.
Neufeld implied it was too convenient for Mazzola to claim she rested her eyes about the time a detective supposedly handed the vial of blood to Fung.
“Miss Mazzola,” Neufeld asked, “did you invent this notion that your eyes were closed so that Mr. Fung could testify that he received the vial without you seeing it?”
Ito sustained an objection and Mazzola didn’t have to answer.
Neufeld also elicited testimony from Mazzola that she didn’t have an “independent recollection” of picking up a glove and ski cap at the murder scene, actions that were captured on videotape and played in court.
“Yet, you have an independent recollection that while you were sitting on a couch you closed your eyes? You had that recollection ten months later?” Neufeld asked.
“Yes,” Mazzola replied.
Fung and Detective Philip Vannatter have testified that Vannatter delivered the vial to Fung on June 13. Simpson willingly provided a sample of his blood at police headquarters, and Vannatter said he drove it across town to Simpson’s estate, where Fung and Mazzola were collecting evidence. …
… Fung testified that Detective Philip Vannatter gave him a blood sample taken from Simpson at police headquarters earlier on June 13. Fung said he received the blood from Vannatter in the foyer of Simpson’s home. The vial was in a grey envelope, and he opened it in the foyer to examine it.
When Scheck asked whether this was normal procedure for booking evidence, Fung said, “I can’t remember one instance where that (evidence was transported to him instead of being booked at the Evidence Control Unit) happened.” …
… The defense contends the blood wasn’t handed over to Fung that day and the delay gave police an opportunity to plant it.
Prosecutor Hank Goldberg then began his re-direct by directing asking Mazzola whether she was involved in a conspiracy to frame Simpson for murder.
Not only was she not part of a police conspiracy, Mazzola testified, she didn’t even know who Simpson was when she and Fung arrived at his home to start collecting evidence.
"Mr. Fung kept saying, 'O.J.‘s house’ … and I said, ‘O.J. who?’ " Mazzola said. “He said, 'movies, sports … ’ It just did not ring a bell.” …
… Some of the most interesting testimony came when defense attorney Peter Neufeld tried to show that Mazzola could have been involved in a cover-up for Fung.
Neufeld began the line of questioning by reminding Mazzola that she testified during a pretrial hearing on August 23, 1994 that she had initialed all the coin envelopes and bindles used to preserve blood samples taken from the crime scenes. Neufeld then asked Mazzola to sift through all the bindles and envelopes taken from Simpson’s Rockingham estate. He asked her to indicate which ones had her initials. She had to admit that none of them did.
Neufeld then asked when Mazzola found out that her initials were not on the envelopes and bindles. She responded that she noticed it when she just happened to walk past the serology lab and saw the evidence lying on a table. Neufeld questioned whether this was possible since the serology room is quite large, with a long table and criminalists working on several cases at a time. Besides, he pointed out, how could Mazzola just happen to see the envelope and bindles with particular writing on them. And he suggested that Mazzola found out some other way, adding that Mazzola had told the truth at the August pretrial hearing but that Fung - as part of the conspiracy - could have changed the originals and that the envelopes and bindles unsealed in court were not the originals.
“Did you realize that if the prosecutors could not produce the original bindles, that that would be devastating,” Neufeld asked. But Mazzola did not have to answer the question because Judge Lance Ito sustained a prosecution objection that the question was improper. …
