DOMINICK DUNNE STRICKEN IN O.J. COURT; EXPECTS HOSPITAL RELEASE TODAY

Dominick Dunne, Vanity Fair's celebrity crime writer, expects to be released today after being stricken during testimony in O.J. Simpson's trial Monday.

The 82-year-old best-selling novelist turned to a CNN producer about 10 a.m., and said he was in pain and gestured to his lower abdomen.

Dunne is suffering from bladder cancer and has undergone stem cell treatment, as Vegas Confidential first reported on Sunday after dining with Dunne on Friday.

His son, Griffin, was flying to Las Vegas from Los Angeles to visit his father at Valley Hospital.

"He's grateful to the court marshal (who noticed Dunne was in distress) who called the paramedic," Linda Deutsch, special correspondent for the Associated Press and a close friend of Dunne's, told Vegas Confidential.

Dunne told Deutsch: "Tell them not to worry. I'm fine. They're going to check me out and I'll go back to the hotel and watch the trial there today."

According to Deutsch, Dunne was checked by paramedics in the hallway before he was wheeled away on a gurney, sitting up and talking.

Dunne's first-person reports have appeared in Vanity Fair for more than 25 years. His coverage of high society and celebrity trials made him a legendary figure. He covered Simpson's murder trial in which he was acquitted in 1995 of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

Dunne had planned to return to New York at the end of the week for medical tests. He was planning another round of stem cell treatment.

-- NORM CLARKE, Vegas Confidential