Anatomy of a Plot

Clarence Stewart was having a tough Thursday afternoon. The Las Vegas mortgage broker and golfing buddy of O.J. Simpson's, known to friends as C.J., was squiring Simpson's daughter Arnelle around town in his Lincoln Navigator as she tried to finish last-minute planning for the wedding of O.J.'s best friend, Tom Scotto. But Simpson himself kept interrupting—peppering Stewart's cell phone with calls every 20 minutes or so. There were some guys in town who had stolen property belonging to Simpson, O.J. had told his friend earlier, according to Stewart's attorney, Rob Lucherini. "O.J.'s calling, saying 'C.J., I need you to help me'," Lucherini told NEWSWEEK.

With each call, Simpson grew more insistent. Stewart, concerned, dispatched a friend of his—a laborer and sometime bartender named Charles Cashmore—to the Palms, the hotel where O.J. was staying. Somebody needed to calm Simpson down. Stewart was also worried about O.J.'s alcohol intake. "[Stewart] said, 'You've been drinking too much. Slow down'," Lucherini says. At one point, Arnelle intervened, Lucherini says, and the two Simpsons argued over the phone.  (Simpson attorney Yale Galanter declined to discuss evidence in the case; Arnelle Simpson didn't respond to a request for comment.)

Stewart was reluctant to help at first, but he finally agreed to go. In the early evening, he pulled the Navigator to the curb at the Palms. Simpson and Cashmore—and perhaps a third man according to lawyers—got in, and the men made their way to the Palace Station Hotel and Casino. Lucherini, Stewart's attorney, insists that "all C.J. knows is that O.J. wants to pick up property stolen from him." Stewart had no idea guns might be used—and never saw one during the episode, according to his attorney. They were joined at the Palace Station by three other men. Stewart wavered about whether to drop Simpson off or to go into the hotel and help recover the goods. Knowing Simpson could be volatile, Stewart decided to go in and help keep the situation "under control," Lucherini says.

And so began a chain of events that led to the arrests of Simpson and five suspected henchmen in a bizarre "sting operation" that could land the former NFL great behind bars for life. While the news of O.J.'s arrest and subsequent release on $125,000 bond have commanded headlines and constant cable TV coverage all week, the plot itself, the men alleged to have perpetrated it, and how it all came together, are only now coming into focus. Pieced together from interviews with lawyers, media statements by the suspects, an arrest report leaked to the Smoking Gun Web site and an audio recording of the incident obtained by celebrity gossip site TMZ.com, the Simpson arrest saga is a tale of shady characters, long-simmering grudges and a well-laid trap. Sifting through the wreckage, it becomes clear that at least some of the participants in the weekend's events—a ragtag posse of middle-aged wedding guests and golfing buddies—had no idea what they had gotten themselves into.

Lawyers for Simpson and four other men suggested their clients will enter not guilty pleas. (An attorney for Walter Alexander says his client, who spoke to police in an immunity deal, is working on a plea bargain.) Simpson's attorney, Yale Galanter, who says Simpson will plead not guilty to all charges at next month's arraignment, says Simpson was unarmed and he thinks that none of the others who accompanied them had weapons either. "I don't think there were any guns," Galanter told NEWSWEEK Thursday-a statement at odds with the criminal complaint against his client, which includes charges of kidnapping, assault, robbery and coercion—all with a deadly weapon, which hikes up the potential penalties considerably.

Galanter believes that the police and prosecutors have overcharged Simpson. "Clearly the fact that O.J. is attached to this has made these charges more serious and [the complaint is] a much looser type of charging document than what you would normally see," Galanter told NEWSWEEK. "If it was Orenthal Smith, this would never have been put in the system. This is absurd."