He was straight out of central casting, a former Mafia enforcer with black goatee, gold hoop earring and a pair of metallic silver pants that looked like they could conduct electricity.
These days, Craig "Tony the Animal" Fiato is a semi-protected federal witness who sings for prosecutors against his former employer - the mob.Tuesday, Fiato was singing for someone else: O.J. Simpson.
Fiato told wide-eyed jurors how a lead detective in the Simpson case told him and his brother, Larry, how Simpson was immediately a suspect in the slayings of Simpson's ex-wife and her friend.
The defense elicited testimony from the Fiato brothers to damage the credibility of detective Philip Vannatter, who testified earlier that he didn't consider Simpson a suspect when police entered his estate without a warrant hours after the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were discovered.
The Fiato brothers' testimony is part of a two-pronged attack the defense has launched as it wraps up its case. In addition to going after the Los Angeles Police Department, defense attorneys are seek-ing to discredit witness Roger Martz, an FBI agent.
Superior Court Judge Lance Ito said he would rule Wednesday on whether Martz should be forced to return to the stand to face allegations he slanted reports in other cases against defendants and, in the Simpson case, violated FBI procedures on notekeeping.
Prosecutor Brian Kelberg described Martz's chief accuser, FBI agent Frederic Whitehurst, as a "sad figure, a tragic figure" incapable of comprehending how pure science can be applied in the real world.
Kelberg also said Whitehurst's allegations against Martz have little, if any, relevance to Martz's testimony that blood found at the crime scene didn't come from a test tube with a special preservative used at the police lab. Martz was a defense witness who was later declared a hostile witness.
"When you get to the bottom line of all of Dr. Whitehurst's (information) that he can offer, he can offer nothing on Simpson," Kelberg said.