Al "A.C." Cowlings took the witness stand in his best friend's trial, reluctantly offering evidence that contradicts O.J. Simpson's claims that he never hit his ex-wife.
Appearing relaxed Tuesday but guarding his words, Cowlings recalled for jurors that Nicole Brown Simpson told him after a New Year's 1989 fight with her husband that the football star had "pulled her hair."But prodded by plaintiff's attorney John Q. Kelly, Cowlings went further.
"Mr. Cowlings, did she tell you that O.J. Simpson had hit her?" Kelly asked.
"Yes, she probably did, yes," Cowlings responded.
Cowlings, wearing a brown suit, had been called to the witness stand by the plaintiffs as their phase of the wrongful-death trial draws to a close.
He was behind the wheel of the white Ford Bronco as Simpson fled police five days after the slayings of his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman.
Simpson and Cowlings have been buddies since their childhood days in San Francisco and went on to play football together at the University of Southern California and with the Buffalo Bills.
Cowlings never testified during the criminal trial. But in 1995, he launched a 900 phone line to tell the public about his friendship with Simpson - for $2.99 a minute.
"As you sit here today, is it fair to say Mr. O.J. Simpson is your closest and dearest friend?" Kelly asked.
"Yes, he still is," Cowlings responded.
That answer may have helped jurors understand why Cowlings' sounded as if he were hedging.
Asked to recall his deposition testimony about Simpson jumping over a neighbor's fence after the New Year's domestic violence incident, Cowlings at first disputed his own account but later conceded that it was correct.
The evidence is important to the plaintiffs because they believe that after killing his ex-wife and her friend, Simpson jumped over a neighbor's fence in the same way he did in 1989.
Cowlings is just one of several witnesses that plaintiff attorneys are calling to the witness stand in an effort to paint Simpson a liar for insisting that he never beat his wife.
India Allen, a former Playboy Playmate, told jurors Tuesday that in 1983, she saw Simpson strike Nicole Simpson in the parking lot of the veterinary office where Nicole had her dogs washed.
"He hit her across the face and her glasses and her headband flew off," Allen said. She added that she noticed a "fading bruise" under one of Nicole's eyes.
Defense attorney Robert C. Baker noted that in addition to posing for Playboy, Allen had appeared nude in a cigar magazine in 1995.
He accused her of testifying to resurrect her acting career. "No, I can't really work with a big belly," said Allen, who is pregnant with her third child.
Albert Aguilera, a pharmacist, said he saw Simpson slap his wife at Laguna Beach in July 1986. "He swung his right hand and hit her across the face, and she went down," he said.
Also Tuesday, Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki refused Baker's request for a mistrial on the grounds that plaintiff attorney Daniel Petrocelli told a jury that Simpson had taken a lie detector test - and failed miserably.
Fujisaki said that Baker himself had opened the door to such testimony because he referred to a lie detector test in his opening statements.