Monday, August 10, 2020

I heard OJ's blood was drawn by the police, but then 1.5 cc's was missing. Is this true? Could it have been used to plant evidence against Simpson?





No. The police nurse, Thano Peratis, claimed to have taken "approximately" 8 cc's of blood in his grand jury testimony, but upon further inspection, the defense noted that only 6.5 cc's was in the tube. So this must mean that the small amount was stolen and used on the gate and sock, right? This was the defense team's argument.

But it is complete nonsense.  When Peratis learned of the defense team's theory, he called the prosecution because he thought it was so ridiculous. Peratis subsequently testified that it was an approximation, and later clarified that it was closer to 6-6.5 cc's when he compared the vial amount to a water sample he prepared. 

So is he lying? Did the prosecution have him change his testimony?  He called the prosecution, not the other way around. If he were lying, why would he do that? There is not one single bit of proof that Peratis was encouraged to change his testimony, though some have suggested this.

Peratis was clear that in the thirty years of doing his job, nobody had ever made an issue of the exact amount of blood drawn, and that's why he was estimating his number as he always did (Peratis typically drew blood for DUI suspects more than anything).  But again, the fact that the EDTA theory has been discredited proves this theory was pointless in in the first place.  

In an interview with former Los Angeles D.A. Vincent Bugliosi, Peratis said the whole process "is very imprecise, and none of us ever measure or check, because this is the first time in over thirty years working at the dispensary that anyone had made an issue of how much blood I had withdrawn.  It just never came back up before."  

And the testimony during the civil trial:

MR. MEDVENE) And is it accurate that you don't and haven't measured how much blood you draw when you do -- presently use the syringe?

PERATIS: We never measure blood.

(moments later)

MEDVENE: Why did you say the amount that you said?

PERATIS:  Up to this time, I think that anyone that would draw blood, if they were asked that question, think of 8 cc's as about the amount that we draw. And that is about the first thing they think. And that was the first thing that came out of my mouth. The correct answer at that time should have been, "I don't know how much I drew."


So if Peratis says that in over 30 years of taking blood nobody had made an issue of how much he took, and that "none of us ever check," then why suddenly for the Simpson case would he draw exactly 8.0 cc's?  In all likelihood, he just wouldn't.  The defense team was reaching.  Hard.

2 comments:

  1. Peratis admitted to William Dear in 2004 that he was certain he withdrew 8 cc’s because it was the amount he drew from patients all 33 years of his career, but he was close to retirement and had several heart attacks in the past so didn’t want to cause any problems for the prosecution.

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    1. Yes, in Dear's book when asked "Are you sure you withdrew 8cc of Mr Simpson's blood?" Peratis allegedly said "Yes sir." But he affirmed in that interview that he he said in his testimony that he could have made a mistake in the amount drawn. So his testimony, comments with Bugliosi, and comments with Dear appear inconsistent. I think it's best in this situation to then look at the LC/MS testing to see if EDTA was in those samples.

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