Bill Pavelic | William Bill Pavelic | Zvonko Bill Pavelic

O.J. Simpson’s alibi witness admitted yesterday that the football great’s in-vestigator coaxed her to push up the time she allegedly saw his white Ford Bronco. Rosa Lopez, who worked next-door to Simpson’s mansion, testified that she saw the vehicle parked by his estate just after 10 p.m. the night the super-star’s former wife and her pal were slain.

Under a fierce cross-examination, the Salvadoran maid indicated that Simpson gumshoe Zvonko (Bill) Pavelic asked her during an interview to jack up the time to 10:15 to 10:20 p.m. the time prosecutors believe the murders occurred.

“All I said was that it was after 10,” a nervous Lopez said through a trans-lator.
“So you don’t know how long after 10?” prosecutor Christopher Darden asked.
“No, sir.”

Asked by Darden whether Pavelic “suggested” that she saw the vehicle between 10:15 and 10:20, Lopez replied: “If that’s what he’s saying, that’s fine.”

Darden then asked: “Did you give him times and sometimes he said other times?”
Lopez replied, “If you say so, sir. It is correct.”

Her initial version could have given Simpson time to make the 2-mile, six-minute drive to where Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman were slain on June 12.

In opening statements, the defense told jurors Lopez had seen the vehicle at 10:15 that fateful night.
The grueling cross-examination which took place without the jury turned bit-ter as Darden accused defense attorney Johnnie Cochran of using hand signals to coach the Salvadoran maid on the stand.

Clad in a snazzy outfit bought for her by the defense, Lopez was caught in contradiction after contradiction, and replied, “I don’t remember, sir,” to doz-ens of seemingly simple questions.

At one point, she said she could not recall the date, time of day or even the season of her first meeting with Pavelic last summer.
But in her testimony on Monday, Lopez painstakingly described how when the clock struck 10, she leashed her employer’s dog and put on water for tea before going outside and seeing O.J.’s Bronco.

Under cross-examination, she conceded that she stuck tea water in the micro-wave for 90 seconds and didn’t drink it before leaving. That would place her outside closer to 10 p.m.

The 57-year-old immigrant whose threats to flee the United States spurred Judge Lance Ito to order her testimony taped for future use also admitted that she had filed for unemployment on Feb. 15 and had considered staying in this country.

“If I was given unemployment, sir, there was no reason for me to leave the country,” said Lopez, who said she used her son’s address on the form.
Darden, though, spent most of the day chipping at inconsistencies in the July 29 interview that Pavelic conducted with Lopez, in a written report based on that session and in a report based on an Aug. 18 meeting.

Under fierce questioning, Lopez revealed that O.J.’s assistant Cathy Randa contacted her, told her to meet her on a side street and then drove her to the football star’s office to meet Pavelic.

She also denied spending seven hours Saturday in Cochran’s office, only to admit doing so minutes later.
But she denied that they discussed the case.

“He just tells me to tell the truth, sir,” she told Darden.

After saying she couldn’t remember what she did on Sunday, she recalled going on a defense-sponsored shopping spree, buying two dresses and two pairs of shoes.