A Day in the Life of Prisoner 4013970

By Jordan Bonfante/Los Angeles

Promptly at 6 a.m., long before Southern California's chill and brooding morning fog begins to lift, a deputy sheriff unbolts the face-high shutter in the solid steel door of the cell and calls to prisoner 4013970. O.J. Simpson arises and is led across the hall for his daily shower. Returning to his cell, he shaves at the stainless-steel sink. A heated kitchen cart is wheeled down the corridor, and through a slot in the door Simpson is handed a breakfast of scrambled eggs, potatoes, two slices of wheat bread and coffee brewed in a stainless-steel kitchen vat so wide it uses a bed sheet for a filter. His only utensil is a plastic spoon.

Soon, Lieut. John Dewyer, head of the legal unit charged with ensuring that the jail observes all lawful provisions, pays a brief visit. "Any problems? Been receiving your mail O.K.?" In a tone more correct than friendly, Simpson says he has no complaints. "And is the bike O.K.?" Dewyer asks, referring to an Exercycle that has been made available to his prisoner. "Yeah, it's great," says Simpson with some animation. As on all such occasions, "the case" remains scrupulously unmentioned.

During the past two weeks, while his preliminary hearing was in progress, Simpson left the jail at 8:15 on most mornings. After exchanging his dark blue, loose-fitting inmate outfit with LA COUNTY JAIL stenciled on the back for his street clothes, he was escorted into the back seat of a black-and- white sheriff's van with tinted windows, bound for the criminal-courts building three-quarters of a mile away. Following close behind was an unmarked Chevy Caprice chase car with two armed plainclothesmen.

Now, however, as Simpson awaits his arraignment, he faces long, tedious days in his cell, a beige, windowless room measuring 9 ft. by 7 ft. and furnished only with an iron bunk and a stainless-steel toilet next to a sink. A cardboard box on the floor, containing papers and letters, and the odd apple or orange complete the decor. As a protective-custody inmate, Simpson is denied access to mess halls, rooftop exercise areas or even the chapel. His only breaks are two hour-long periods of activity in the "freeway" of the corridor. There he can use the public phone, watch TV on a mobile stand and exercise on the bike. Sometimes he talks on the phone and pedals the bike at the same time.

"Over the years we've housed Sirhan-Sirhan, the Manson family, major organized-crime figures, the individuals involved in the Reginald Denny case and numerous other people with celebrity status," says Sheriff Sherman Block, Simpson's chief jailer, "but I've never seen anything like this. Behind the courthouse this morning I couldn't believe what I saw in the way of electronic-media equipment. You could probably cook a huge steak with all the microwaves there -- or become sterile."

Though Simpson resides in the most populated jail in the country (about 6,200 prisoners, with more than 1,000 newcomers a day), he lives, paradoxically, in complete, not-so-splendid isolation. He is assigned to "7000," the second-floor ward of the hospital section, reserved for severe mental cases who require "behavior observation," defendants who would be at risk among other prisoners, or notable figures like Simpson, who need "special handling" for their own safety. "There are inmates who would ! attack him just because he is a celebrity," says Sheriff Block. "You know the kind: 'Hey, look at me -- I'm the guy who shot Abe Lincoln.' "

For a day after his incarceration, Simpson's next-cell neighbor was Erik Menendez, the younger of the Beverly Hills brothers who murdered their parents. To ensure that Simpson and Menendez would not overhear each other's telephone conversations, Block ordered Menendez moved to another part of 7000. (Brother Lyle is in a different, equally high-security block of the jail.) That left Simpson alone in an isolated row, or module, of seven cells.

Because he is a murder suspect, Simpson wears the red wristband of a high- security inmate. When he is taken to meet with his defense lawyers in the large attorney's room on the ground floor, he wears handcuffs and a waist chain. When the lawyers give him legal papers to read, they are extended first to a deputy sheriff, who searches through them before handing them to Simpson. He has so far not had much time to read books. When he does, they will have to come directly from the publishers; no privately delivered reading material is allowed, since the pages could be soaked with drugs.

The jail receives more than 2,000 letters a day addressed to Simpson; of these, his lawyers select a handful for him to read. Block reports that his office gets 50 to 100 phone calls every day asking about Simpson. Many are messages of sympathy and support. Most are merely curious -- people, says the sheriff, who "want to know what he's wearing and what he's eating." One irate Minnesotan phoned last Thursday demanding to know how the sheriff's department was planning to celebrate O.J.'s 47th birthday, which, coincidentally, fell last Saturday, one day after he was remanded to trial. Simpson could not have been in much of a mood to celebrate.