Von Bulow Trial Begins Without Dershowitz

While his legal strategist was teaching classes at the Law School yesterday, Danish aristocrat Claus von Bulow began his long-awaited retrial trying Providence on charges of twice trying to murder his heiress wife.

Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz will direct the von Bulow defense from his Law School office, keeping tabs on a three-ring circus of a trial that has all the makings of a cheap courtroom novel: lust, greed, syringes, an heiress' fortune, a bitter maid, and vindictive step-children.

"This case has everything; it has money, sex, drugs; it has Newport, New York, and Europe; has maids, butlers, and a gardener," R.I. Assistant Attorney General Henry Gemma Jr., one of two prosecutors in the case, told The Boston Globe yesterday.

Dershowitz, however, will hear about most of the excitement over the phone. "I'm a professor first and a lawyer second," he said yesterday The outspoken Dershowitz will plan strategy and consult daily with the von Bulow defense team, but will leave most of the courtroom trial work to New York attorney Thomas Puccio.

"I'm not going to miss any classes," Dershowitz said.

Dershowitz reacted angrily last year to charges in The Wall Street Journal that he has neglected his teaching duties to pursue private practice.

Dershowitz was not involved in the much-bally hooed, five-week 1982 trial, when Von Bulow was convicted of attempting to kill his wife, Pittsburgh utilities heiress and New port socialite Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, by injecting her with insulin injections.

Mrs. von Burow has been in an irreversible coma in a New York hospital for the past four years.

The prosecution successfully that in 1979 and 1980 von Bulow tried to made, his wife in the New port mansion because he wanted to collect her 14 million inheritance-and because he had fallen in love with a soap opera star who reportedly told von Bulov that he would have to choose "either her or me."

Von Bulow was sentenced to 30 years in prison in the 1982 trial. But he has never spent a night in jail, thanks to a successful appeal masterminded by Dershowitz last year in the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

Dershowitz freed von Bulow after arguing that the prosecution's key evidence-syringes allegedly used to inject Martha von Bulow with insulin and other drugs-were illegally tested by police.

The prosecution, whose 1982 case rested largely on circumstantial evidence, is expected to present essentials the same evidence this time around.

The defense, however, has a few tricks up its sleeve "We have a much stronger case than the first time around," Dershowitz said yesterday He recently vowed to "below the prosecution's case out of the water."

Dershowitz's overall strategy will be to show that Martha von Bulow, by abusing drugs and alcohol. brought the come on herself.

Key advisors in the case include Professor of Medicine George F. Cahill and Lee Professor of Legal Medicine William J. Curran Neither could be reached for comment yesterday.

Von Bulow is confident that the jury-which is currently being chosen-will agree that the charges against him are a frame-up Although he refused comment yesterday, von Bulow recently told a reporter that he feels "very good and very optimistic going into the trial."

At the Providence Country Superior Court yesterday, Judge Corrine P. Grande and the attorneys began to whittle down a pool of 250 citizens into a 12-person jury with four alternates. The process is expected to last two weeks.

"We're looking for a jury with an open mind," Dershowitz added.

The trial, which Dershowitz said could last two months, has attracted international publicity Swarms of reporters at the courtroom yesterday were denied entrance by Grande during the morning session, but struck a bargain with Grande and will be allowed more coverage as the trial progresses