THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Marcus Allen’s Testimony Sought on Alleged Affair

Attorneys for O.J. Simpson, in an effort to show that their client was not murderously jealous, are seeking the testimony of football star Marcus Allen, who the lawyers say confessed to Simpson that Nicole and he were lovers, according to court papers.

The defense team’s motion states that Allen, a running back with the Kansas City Chiefs, admitted to Simpson in 1993, a few weeks before Allen’s wedding, that “he had been sexually intimate with Nicole Brown Simpson.� Still, according to the motion, “Mr. Simpson opened his home to Mr. Allen, allowing him to use Mr. Simpson’s Rockingham Avenue home for his wedding.�

Attempts to reach Allen, who, like Simpson, won the Heisman Trophy as a star tailback at USC, were unsuccessful.

But his attorney, Ed Hookstratten of Beverly Hills, denied that his client had been sexually involved with Nicole Brown Simpson.

“To me,� Hookstratten said, “it’s nothing more than putting a new jacket on a tired old story, an alleged affair that never took place. The defense seems bent on attempting to go forth with this kind of bogus allegation.�

Hookstratten said Allen told Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Darden last summer that there had been no affair. “We felt that was the end of it, but the defense has cleverly planted through their investigators this kind of aura that Marcus had something other than a normal friendship with the deceased. It’s very disturbing, but he doesn’t know how to put a stop to it.�

The motion for his testimony, prepared by Simpson attorney Shawn Snider Chapman on May 16, states that the defense needs Allen to be available for about three days starting July 10.

On May 17, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito signed an order directing that Allen appear in his courtroom July 10 as a material witness. That order was forwarded to a Kansas City judge, who will consider it today.

As a Missouri resident, Allen is entitled to a hearing at which the Missouri judge must find that he is in fact a material witness in the Simpson case and that traveling to California would not cause him undue hardship.

The alleged affair involving Allen and Nicole Simpson gained national notoriety last fall in a controversial book written by her friend Faye Resnick. In her book, “Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted,� Resnick said Nicole told her and another friend that she and Allen had been sexually involved.