LAS VEGAS -- A key witness in the O.J. Simpson armed robbery trial took the stand Thursday with an interesting story.

The fourth day of witness testimony began with Thomas Riccio, the man who organized the meeting between Simpson and the memorabilia dealers and made audio recordings of it.

Riccio said he came to Las Vegas specifically to help Simpson recover some of his personal belongings after receiving a call from Alfred Beardsley, one of the alleged victims.

"He (Beardsley) said, 'Don't call O.J. up because this stuff was stolen from his trophy room,'" Riccio said. "What'd you do? I called O.J. up (laughing)."

Riccio said he wanted to help Simpson get Beardsley back for previous bad deals and make some money in the process. He said that he and Simpson had even discussed calling some entertainment news shows to "bust these people selling stolen items."

When the deal went down last September, Riccio said Simpson showed up with five other men, barged into the hotel room and confronted Beardsley and Bruce Fromong. Two of them were armed with guns, he said.

"From my point of view, there was no need for the guns to come out," Riccio said. "They were pushing it back, 'Hey we took this. We're sorry, O.J.' You know, tap dancing back."

Riccio had a tape recorder secretly placed on top of a cabinet the entire time. Defense attorney Yale Galanter said the tapes prove investigators were out to get the former football star from the start.

"Next to Perkins, he says, 'This is great. Yeah, uh, John, said he was like, yeah, California can't get him. Now we'll be able to get him,' and then in parenthesis laughing," Galanter said.

Riccio made more than 10 hours worth of audio recordings, which will start the day of testimony Friday. Defense attorneys are expected to question the authenticity of those tapes when the case resumes.

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