Mob Informers Testify For Simpson Defense

The jurors in the O.J. Simpson trial were treated Tuesday to the colorful testimony of two government mob informers - Craig Anthony Fiato and his brother, Lawrence - who were called by Simpson’s defense team in an effort to discredit one of the lead investigators.

At issue was the testimony of Los Angeles Police Detective Philip Vannatter, who has repeatedly maintained that Simpson was not a suspect when police scaled a wall to his estate without a search warrant. That search produced a mass of evidence, including the bloody glove that matched one found near the bodies of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Vannatter repeated that testimony Tuesday.

But in separate appearances on the witness stand, the brothers, who have a longstanding relationship with the district attorney’s office as informers, conceded that Vannatter had made statements on two occasions indicating that “the husband is always a suspect.”