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The FBI vs. OJ SIMPSON The Martz of Crimes

Alex Constantine - January 29, 2025

(A continuation of my previous post)

By Alex Constantine

Agent Deedrick's performance on the stand dinged the the FBI's image, then along came scientist Roger Martz to drive it through a judicial demolition derby with the whole world watching. 

Blood Feud

His own reputation took a hit in 1993 when he was called as a witness in the World Trade Center bombing trial. Frederic Whitehurst, the dean of the FBI's explosives school, tagged after him  -- a whistle-blower who nursed a particular disdain for Martz.

The first step of Whitehurst's plan to expose a false witness was taken in the men's room, where he urinated into a beaker and mixed it with fecal matter. Then he dried the contents with acetone, labeled it so the vial so it appeared to be evidence approved for trial.

Martz and his Lynn Laswell, a co-worker at the FBI lab, examined the sample and reported that it was an obscure, high-grade explosive.

There it was. Whitehurst was vindicated. His superiors had turned a deaf ear to complaints of Martz's fudging of evidence to suit prosecutors. Whitehurst thought he had made his point, but Al Roblart, his boss, chewed him out, and warned him to never try it again. Whitehurst's colleagues at the Bureau told reporters that he was an oddball. The the press, he was a "gadfly" making waves at the FBI. Prosecutors found him "vindictive," "jealous," "rigid,"  a man with "no sense of humor."

But they couldn't fault his expertise. Whitehurst spent three years in Vietnam studying explosive materials. For his service, he was awarded three bronze stars. He earned a PhD in chemistry at Duke University, then joined the FBI on 1986 to teach explosives at Quantico, and work on RICO cases. A sense of humor wasn't required.

Whitehurst's critics must have missed the performance review that praised Whitehurst's forensic knowledge, but did find fault with his management style. He admitted that there was some friction in his dealings with colleagues, that he could be “harsh and abrupt," so he didn't argue with the black eye in his performance review.

Somehow, it was forgotten that Martz had conflated Whitehurst's excretions with a powerful explosive. But FBI officials and the media reserved their scorn for Whitehurst. This  despite the fact that the Bureau's lab in D.C., he said, was highly contaminated "with the very bomb residues they were trying to find on evidence."

Scientists at the lab were "ordered not to document experiments so the results could not be challenged in court." No paper trail, no accountability.

Whitehurst was persistent. So were his detractors. The Bureau sent him home for a week after he told defense attorneys that forensic analysis against a terrorist ring linked to Ferdinand Marcos was unreliable.

In 1995,Martz testified in the Simpson trial, and Whitehurst wasn't far behind.

Three years later, a review of by Attorney General for Administration Stephen R. Colgate  would cite then-unit chief Martz for negligence, lack of documentation, and "overstated" testimony in the Simpson trial. This didn't appease critics of the FBI, who condemned the DoJ review as a "whitewash." Colgate didn't quite deny it. He explained that FBI officials put up  "consistent and often spirited opposition" to his findings, so he watered them down a little, and recommended "minimal" disciplinary action against Martz and 10 of his co-workers.

 

It was a tragi-comedy of errors. Martz returned from a break on his first day on the stand. During the break, he met with prosecutors for a private discussion, then returned to the stand  to retract statements he made only minutes before. The Associated Press reported that he insisted "his tests on evidence did not detect enough preservative to support a defense frame-up theory." EDTA is a blood preservative added to samples in the lab. OJ's blood was stored in test tubes and treated with the chemical., Samples of blood were also drawn by the coroner from the victims and stored. Cochran maintained that blood treated with preservative had been sprinkled on a pair of socks alleged to be Simpson's, and the back gate at Nicole's condominium, by police.

"I believe my data has been misinterpreted by somebody else, and I wanted to prove that," Martz announced.

In statements made before Ito called a break, the chemical found in bloodstains was "consistent" with EDTA. When tested, "it responded," Martz said, "like EDTA responded.". After the break and closed meeting with Clark's team, "no EDTA was present."

Martz had been subpoened by the defense to  run down his lab results in front of the jury. A few minutes later, he recanted. Defense toxicologist Fredric Rieders testifed earlier in the week that he had reviewed Martz's findings, and concluded that EDTA was present in the samples. The FBI agent refuted them.

Martz acknowledged that this was the first time he had ever tested for EDTA. Defense attorney Robert Blazier questioned his knowledge of chemistry. After grilling, Martz admitted that he hadn't read FBI procedures for EDTA testing, and deleted the raw computer data.

Martz then turned to the jury to explain that he had followed FBI protocol, and destroyed the date recorded at the lab. No one else, he said, including Rieders, had seen it.

After hearing Martz's testimony, Judge Ito considered the FBI agent's reversal on the EDTA question, and declared Martz a hostile witness to the defense.

The next day, Blazier asked Martz if he had decided to be an advocate for the prosecution.

Again, Martz turned to the jury and spoke to them directly: "I decided that I had to be more truthful," he said. "I was not being entirely truthful when I responded with 'yes" or 'no' answers. I decided I wanted to tell the whole truth."

In 1997, Simpson attorney Robert Baker, in closing arguments at the civil trial, spent considerable time dismantling the credibility of the FBI's best:" "So  Roger Martz does a test ... and he finds EDTA. ... This is obviously devastating to the prosecution. So what does the FBI do? Roger Martz said, 'I tested my own blood. It came out with essentially the same reading." Martz testified that there is EDTA in food, so it naturally turned up in his own sample.

"But contrary to FBI procedures, he erases the computer run [sic], so nobody can come back and look, and at the same time ... that he says that no one knows that 'EDTA is undetectable in human blood."

Clincher: "No one has devised those tests yet.'"

In September, Blazier and and co-counsel Carl Douglas filed an affidavit signed by Whitehurst accusing Martz of "misconduct" and "improprieties." Martz had knowingly followed the FBI order to destroy data to keep it out of the hands of defense attorneys. As unit leader, he had altered forensic reports prepared by other scientists at the lab to favor prosecutions. Martz created a fog of confusion in the courtroom by larding his testimony with overly-technical jargon, and feigned expertise in matters beyond his training. Martz was a fraud.

The FBI issued a statement acknowledging that Whitehurst had criticized "procedures" at the lab, but an investigation of 250 cases had found no misconduct.

The FBI statement as "garbage," Whitehurst said. He said that he had a role  the review, but was ordered to not discuss specific findings.

Whitehurst said he was under orders not to discuss specific cases.

He didn't fear the FBI, or the "vicious, vulgar slander" flung at him. The Bureau demoted him to paint chip analyst after the WTC bombing. He "didn't have a job anymore," but wasn't backing off. He told ABC that he was ding his duty. "I swore to uphold the Constitution," he said. "There was no caveat" in his oath that he should turn his back on internal improprieties.

But Martz had supporters in high places. In his January  4, 1997 rebuttal of an IG report critical of his testimony, he wrote that FBI Director Louis Freeh "took time out of his busy schedule to call me to his office and inform me that he had watched me testify. He then congratulated me on my testimony. The Assistant Director of the Laboratory gave me a letter of gratitude for my work on the SIMPSON case."