THE BALTIMORE SUN NEWSPAPER

INTERVIEW: Recall the guy who supposedly got engaged to O.J.Simpson's housekeeper? He's back, and this time it has something to do with James Earl Ray.
by Stephanie Shapiro
Sun staff

When we last heard from MIKE GABRIEL, the Pikesville resident had just broken off a much publicized relationship to ROSA LOPEZ, O.J.Simpson's housekeeper. Sad to say, Lopez was ALLERGIC to CATS, precluding a life with Gabriel, an instructor of the Ancient Art of Cat Yoga(r).

The fleeting romance was dutifully reported by everyone from VANITY FAIR to JAY LENO. just another footnote in the strange spectacle of the Simpson trial. Except for this : None of it was true. Gabriel, a stand-up Comedian/Actor(SAG) member of the Screen Actors Guild with a genius for self promotion, had manufactured the whole thing. And for a few wondorous moments ,he managed to make himself a star.

The hoax succeeded beyond Gabriel's greatest hopes," writes JEFFREY TOOBIN who proves the point by mentioning Gabriel in his book, " THE RUN OF HIS LIFE,THE PEOPLE V. O.J.SIMPSON."

HE STANDS OUT

But Gabriel, 28 is not thru messing with our minds. Not by a long shot. He comes to lunch at the tiny Chinese resturant wearing a Popeye tie, a spiffy striped grey suit and grey shirt and a SNAPPLE Watch, a gift from WENDY the SNAPPLE LADY. Ponytailed and 6 feet 5 inches tall, he is hard to miss in this sleepy mall.

Gabriel's mother owns a candy store in the mall called THE SWEET LIFE. He eats steamed vegetables at the Chinese resturant every day.

Today he's also chatting effusively about the man who is helping him hatch his latest scheme, the man he calls his " adopted father ." It's JAMES EARL RAY , the man serving life in prison for assassignating Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

Gabriel produces a sheath of letters from Ray with a Nashville,Tennessee postmark.

" Who have you ever gotten 70 letters from in your life? " he demands. " I think we are extremely close." he says of his incarserated pen pal.

So close, that Gabriel says he is considering being legally adopted by Ray so that he can visit more often. So close , that Ray has cooperated with gabriel's plan to raise money for charity by selling lithographs and prepaid phonecards featuring pictures painted by Ray in his Maximum-Security Prison cell.

Skeptical ? Look it up in theDecember issue of MoneyCard Collectors Magazine where Gabriel has placed a full page ad.

KEY WITNESS

Numerous cards in the ad feature reproductions of Ray's primitive depictions of Gabriel's engagement to Rosa Lopez, a key defense witness who vouched for Simpson on the night of his wifes murder and then fled to her native El Salvador to escape the media onslaught.

Gabriel had already surfaced in the tabloids as a turbaned instructor of Cat Yoga who had written a letter to Simpson expressing confidence in his innocence. The letter appeared in the GLOBE in 1994.

Not long after that, Gabriel sent a note to Lopez in El Salvador via Judge Lance Ito. It contained a $20 money order and an invitation to call collect on his birthday. She did, and then he and his Robin Quivers ventriloquist puppet ( put to use in Gabriel's seperated-at-birth-from-Howard Stern shtick) visited her at her home in the town of Sensuntepeque. There, he placed the engagement ring in the dummy's hand, and proposed by proxy to the 50-something Lopez.

There's proof: Mike, the dummy and a stern Rosa starring at the camera in a photo shot on April 23,1995.

Lopez didn't accept the proposal but she went along with the hoax. " I think she has a great sense of humor." Gabriel says.

Why should this tidbit seem any weirder than anything else surrounding the Simpson case, one of the more bizarre events of the 20th century.

The usual talk show/gosip cloumn/freak show brigade gladly bought it. KEN HARRELL broke the story in the Globe. Within a week, Gabriel was professing his undying love for Lopez on " GERALDO ". Geraldo upped the ante by announcing that simpson would be the best man, Gabriel says.

Uptown journalist DOMINICK DUNNE, who kept Nancy Raegan and Elizabeth Taylor apprised of the Simpson courtrom follies, fell for the hoax too, TWICE!

MENTIONED BY DUNNE

In VANITY FAIR last year, Dunne duly reported in his LETTERS FROM LOS ANGELES: " A few months back I wrote that she had become engaged to a 28 year old ventriloquist named MIKE GABRIEL, or " SENSEI" Mike Gabriel, as he calls himself, who saw Rosa testifying on television and became smitten, and followed her to El Salvador , where she agreed to accept his hand in marriage. That betrothal has bitten the dust. Gabriel who is primarily a teacher of Cat Yoga(r) , recently wrote me a long chatty letter in which he said that Rosa was ALLERGIC to the CATS at his Cat Yoga(r) school and that that had ended the romance.

Not to worry, Gabriel's old girlfriend took him back and they are " engaged to be engaged ". Her name is Samantha Strong and she acts in PORNO FILMS.

Success made Gabriel giddy. Up until his proclamation of love for Lopez, he had tripped briefly through extra parts in " CRY BABY ", " AVALON ", " HOMICIDE ", " FORREST GUMP " ( in which he played a BLACK PANTHER) and other locally shot films.

There was also that little blip on the fame meter when Gabriel traveled at his own expense to TEL AVIV, ISREAL during the PERSIAN-GULF WAR to entertain wounded children as a clown. In the Jewish Times, he wrote: " I felt I would be safe in Tel aviv, even during a raging war. My reasoning: Think back on all the war footage you've ever seen. Whenever they showed the aftermath of a bombing run, you never once saw them pulling any CLOWNS from the rubble.

But in a world where publicity is its on reward, Gabriel hit the big time with the Cat Yoga/Rosa Lopez yarn. LENO, CONAN, you name it,saw fit to make on-air quips about the betrothal. Meanwhile Gabriel, umbilically attached to the media he had hoodwinked, painstakingly documented his triumphs to send to media outlets who had not yet seen fit to report them.

CATS AGAINST CRIME

He wants to make Cat Yoga (r) a household word with Saturday Morning cartoons, action figures, calenders, and any other imagineable merchandising spinoffs. Picture this: Crime fighting CATS on flying carpets. " I cannot be convinced that that won't be a hit," Gabriel says.

But today, he would rather discuss the bureoning collectible field of prepaid phonecards, and his hopes for the cards designed by Ray. Fifty percent of the proceeds will go to charity, he says. " I would like to buy electric wheelchairs and let the Mayor give them out," Gabriel says.

An eight-card set of Ray's cards costs $ 150. Gabriel is also hawking a package that includes the card set and a Limited-Edition, Autographed Vietnam War lithograph by Ray for $ 650.

For sale as well are Gabriel's own Cat Yoga PhoneCards (r). None of this strikes Gabriel as peculiar. He is as sanguine about his relationship with Ray as he is about the plastic surgery that reconfigured his nose. Ray and Ray's brother Jerry, have taken him in like family. " James Earl Ray ,inmate # 65477 is like the father I never really had, " Gabriel contends in one of a flood of faxes.

He didn't do it, Gabriel says. It was a government conspiracy. Dr.Martin Luther King,Jr. was " one of the FINEST people that ever lived, " he says in a fax. But James Earl Ray is INNOCENT!!!, Gabriel says.

It's time for Gabriel to go home to his four cats : KIWI, LASSIE, BATPIG , and SPOOKY. Who knows what exciting phone messages or mail awaits him ? Maybe another letter from DEAR ABBY. Or CHARLIE SHEEN.

" My life has been the most incredible adventure, " Gabriel says with wonder. Every day I wake up thrilled, and I think, " What new person will call me today? "