OJ Simpson estate to fight payout of $33.5M judgment over murders
FILE – This Jan. 31, 1995, file photo shows the projected image of a Jan. 1, 1989 Los Angeles Police Department photo, introduced as evidence in the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial in Los Angeles. Thirty years ago, as women’s rights advocates worked to pass the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, domestic violence was still something of a hushed topic. Then Nicole Brown Simpson’s death forced it into the spotlight. Americans riveted by the murder investigation of superstar ex-husband O.J. Simpson, who died Wednesday, April 11, 2024 at 76, heard startling and painful details of the abuse she said she suffered at his hands. (AP Photo/David Sprague, Pool, File)
LOS ANGELES – The executor of O.J. Simpson’s estate says he will try to prevent the payout of a $33.5 million judgment awarded by a civil jury after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
“It’s my hope that the Goldmans get zero, nothing,” attorney Malcolm LaVergne told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Friday. “Them specifically.
And I will do everything in my capacity as the executor or personal representative to try and ensure that they get nothing.”
The former football star and actor, who was acquitted of murder charges in the June 1994 deaths of his ex-wife and her friend Goldman, a waiter, died April 10 in the Las Vegas area from prostate cancer.
Simpson was found liable for the deaths in a civil trial in Santa Monica in 1997 and ordered to pay $33.5 million. The families have said that Simpson was not cooperative in the years after the civil verdict, and much of that judgment is believed to have never been paid.
According to LaVergne, Simpson’s will, which was revealed Friday and names him the executor in charge of overseeing the estate, places Simpson’s property into a trust. He said its total value has not yet been determined.
LaVergne said Simpson was diagnosed with prostate cancer several years ago, and that it had gone into remission before recently returning.
Simpson earned fame, fortune and adulation through football and show business, but his legacy was forever changed by the June 1994 knife slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles. He was later found liable for the deaths in a separate civil case, and then served nine years in prison on unrelated charges.
Goldman’s father, Fred, and his sister, Kim, released a statement acknowledging that “the hope for true accountability has ended.”
“The news of Ron’s killer passing away is a mixed bag of complicated emotions and reminds us that the journey through grief is not linear,” they wrote. (CNS)
