MORE THAN A decade ago, the Law gave Fredric Goldman a $19 million wrongful-death civil judgment for the loss of his 25-year-old son, Ron Goldman. That civil judgment reflected a jury’s conclusion, by clear and convincing evidence, that Ron was murdered. The bulk of that judgment, more than $12 million, was punitive. The jury determined that the murderer was guilty and needed to be punished. The Law gave Fred that judgment, and then it said to Fred, “Now go out and enforce it … if you can.”
Imagine if your loved one was murdered. Now imagine further that you know who did it. Everyone knows who did it. But the killer still walks free. He publicly taunts and criticizes you. And the only justice you have ever been given is a monetary judgment against that murderer. A monetary judgment? What are you supposed to do with that? The unfortunate truth is that if the judgment is to be enforced at all, then you have to enforce it. No one else can. No one else will. If you do not enforce the judgment, then the judgment simply does not exist.
And if you try to enforce the judgment, then you will need the help of many people, especially lawyers, who you cannot afford to pay, and you are in for a long, hard fight. The murderer is popular and charismatic, many people still support him, he has publicly bragged that he will never pay a penny on the judgment, and he has the help of his own lawyers, who he can pay.
Anyone in such a position faces a dilemma: to fight for justice or not to fight. Under such circumstances, who can blame a person for simply deciding to leave justice to the hand of fate? Maybe some wars are not worth fighting, and maybe fate should decide what becomes of the killer. No one should be faulted for choosing that path, for choosing not to fight.
By the same token, no one should be faulted for choosing the other path. Some might even say that it is not a choice at all, but rather a function of who and what we are, what we believe, and what we feel compelled to do.
Fred Goldman and his daughter, Kim, felt compelled to fight. And fight they did. Ron was Fred’s only son and Kim’s only sibling. Ron was savagely ripped from their lives. He was a young man, full of life. But the killer furiously and repeatedly stabbed him until Ron’s life slowly drained out of him. It was not quick or painless. Make no mistake about it, regardless of how pleasing to the eye or to the ear that killer might seem, the killer who did that to Ron is a monster. People remember that Ron Goldman was murdered, but people forget how.
I cannot imagine what it must be like for a father to lose his only son, especially in that manner. The first day I met Fred, he told me he did not like it when people asked him about “closure.” I also cannot imagine what it must be like for Kim to lose her only brother and her only sibling. Siblings are the only people who know each other their whole lives, and the bond between an only brother and an only sister seems especially strong. Kim once said to me, “There is not a day that goes by that I do not miss my brother.” Kim and Fred do not speak the name of the murderer. He is simply called “the killer.” He does not even get the benefit of a capital “k.”
Fred and Kim could never get Ron back. But they could pursue the only justice they were ever given. They could try to enforce the civil judgment any way possible under the Law. It is hard to follow the Law while others break it. Fred and Kim have faced terrible obstacles and choices. At times, public pressure has been overwhelming. Some people have even called them “greedy” for trying to enforce their judgment.
It is difficult to defend such a system of justice, but I do defend it. I am one of the many lawyers who have tried to help Fred and Kim pursue their civil judgment. I am also a resident of Los Angeles. I have lived here since 1991, when I began my studies at the UCLA School of Law. My tenure in Los Angeles spans the years before the murders and the years after, including both trials, criminal and civil. Many members of the legal community, here and elsewhere, have been touched or impacted by this case. There are those who see it is a terrible mark on our legal system. I do not. I respect and accept the many careful determinations and sincere efforts that many judges and jurors have devoted to this matter, and, above all else, I adhere to them. That is my job: to follow the Law.
The wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly and in mysterious ways, but those wheels do keeping turning and grinding toward their inevitable result. The Law is a reflection of the deep human need for justice. Humans are not perfect, and neither is the Law or the system in which it operates. But without it, life would be far worse.
And so the problem remains: how do you enforce a civil judgment that appears to be unenforceable? Try to follow the Law. With O.J. Simpson, however, that was very difficult. He has at least two seemingly impenetrable defenses. First, he lives in Florida, which gives him an unlimited homestead exemption. That means that he can own a home in Florida, and that home cannot be foreclosed upon to pay his debts. Even if he robbed a bank and used the stolen money to buy a home in Florida, the bank he stole it from could not take away that home. Second, the bulk of Simpson’s identifiable income comes from pensions (a number of which he created with the assistance of other lawyers), and pension proceeds are exempt from judgment collection. Simpson and his lawyers did a good job of protecting him from the judgment.
I first became involved in this matter in the summer of 2006, when Jonathan Polak, an intellectual property attorney with the Indiana law firm of Sommer Barnard, asked me to serve as local counsel on a unique motion—a motion to try to acquire O.J. Simpson’s “right of publicity” in an attempt to satisfy the judgment. The motion was the idea of one of Jonathan’s clients, Karl Manders of Continental Enterprises. It was a novel idea.
The right of publicity is a transferable property right. It is the right of an individual to control the commercial use of his name, image, and likeness. There are essentially two aspects of this right: the right to profit and the right to control. The right to control is an extension of the right to privacy, which gives one the right to prevent the use of their name, image, or likeness in association with commercial endeavors they do not like. For example, former baseball pitcher Don Newcombe did not want his likeness used to promote the sale of beer. With the rise of media and increased commercialization, however, the right to be paid for the use of one’s name, image, and likeness has outgrown the privacy right. These days, celebrities tend to be more concerned with compensation than prevention.
In theory, if we could somehow acquire or control Simpson’s right to profit from the use of his name, image, or likeness, then the proceeds from that right could be used to partially satisfy the judgment. Those currently using Simpson’s name, image, or likeness would have to pay for such use. We could license such a use, for a price.
But such a motion would be difficult to win, if not impossible. And sure enough, it failed. The Law currently does not provide for the wholesale, involuntary assignment of an intangible right, although some day it might, under certain circumstances. We filed our motion in early September 2006, and on October 31, 2006, it was formally denied. Among other things, the Court was understandably concerned about the inherent right of a human being (even Simpson) to prevent the use of his name, image, or likeness. The Court also emphasized that California has a comprehensive statutory judgment collection scheme, and that scheme does not allow for the assignment or transfer of intangible property rights. The scheme essentially allows for the collection of money and the liquidation of assets into money, nothing less and nothing more.
Shortly after we lost our motion, I appeared on Nancy Grace’s television show. A woman called in and was put on the air. She lived in another state, and she could not understand how Simpson could get away with not paying the judgment. She insisted that in her state, a Judge would simply throw someone like that in jail for “contempt” of Judgment. But that is not the Law. Generally, a judge can hold someone in contempt for willfully violating a court order, but not a final judgment. A civil judgment marks the end of a civil lawsuit, and it typically reflects a final determination that a debt is owed. Like all debts, it is up to the judgment holder, what we call judgment creditor, to enforce and collect debt from the judgment debtor. The judgment debtor, however, cannot be forced to work to pay off his debts (involuntary servitude), nor can he be thrown in jail for failing to pay them (debtor’s prison). That is the Law.
In October of 2006, while our motion was pending, the National Enquirer reported that Simpson was paid over a million dollars for a book and television interview project entitled “If I Did It,” which was described as Simpson’s own hypothetical account of how and why he committed the murders “if” he had committed them. In response to the Enquirer report, Jonathan Polak told me that he asked Simpson’s long-time lawyer, Yale Galanter, if the report was true. Galanter assured Polak there was no truth to the report.
Just after our motion was denied, we found out the reports were true. Fox News advertised a series of interviews with Simpson and the publisher of the book, Judith Regan of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Galanter later apologized to Polak for being mistaken. Apparently, Galanter said he had not known about the book. If Galanter had not known about the book before, he was going to learn a lot more about it. From that point on, Galanter seemed committed to preventing the Goldmans from ever getting the book.
The news of the book and television interviews with Simpson shocked and angered the Goldmans. Fred and Kim had an instant visceral reaction. How could they react otherwise? Simpson was bragging about the murders, and he was being promoted and paid by others, namely a major television network, Fox; a major publisher, Judith Regan of HarperCollins; and all of it under the corporate umbrella of News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch. And they were all seemingly profiting from it. Of course Kim and Fred were disgusted. Anyone in their position would have been disgusted, and clearly they were not alone. The public outcry was immense.
Despite the public outcry, when I first heard about the book, I felt that it could only be a confession and its contents would only make Simpson look bad. Simpson’s whole life was derailed by the murders. He lost his immense fame and goodwill in exchange for infamy. He was forced out of his demigod kingdom, Los Angeles, the home of his past collegiate glory and his shining Hollywood career. He lost his job as a television football commentator, and nobody wanted him in any more movies or commercials. Simpson was accused of savagely killing Ron Goldman, an innocent stranger, and of butchering his own wife, the mother of his children, and then leaving her decapitated corpse on the doorstep for those same children to find. Simpson had it all, but after the murders he was running for his life in a white Bronco and writing something that sounded like a suicide note. He went through an excruciating double-murder prosecution, which carried a potential death penalty. Those are moments that drive an accused person to their knees and make them pray for a miracle. The relief that swept over Simpson’s face when he heard the not-guilty verdict: that was the face of man who narrowly escaped the prospect of death. After going through all of that, no innocent man would write such a book.
And behind the book, many people were working with Simpson in a collective and clandestine effort to jointly profit from the project, and they were all doing so with knowledge that Simpson owed the victims’ families millions of dollars for murdering their loved ones. No one asked Fred or Kim how they felt about any of this until the books were on the pallets ready to be shipped, and the television interviews with Simpson were taped and ready to be aired, and all of it was being trumpeted and advertised in the press.
The book and television project were announced in mid-November of 2006, and they were scheduled to hit bookshelves and television screens later that month. Legally speaking, there was nothing we could do about that. But sometimes, the highest court in the land is the Court of Public Opinion, and that court can intervene quickly and decisively. The public outcry was loud, and the project was cancelled. Judith Regan later lost her job, and Rupert Murdoch described the whole project as “ill-conceived.”
Now what could we do? We were told that Simpson had been paid handsomely for the book, but that he had immediately spent the money. We also knew that the book was still out there, and it was a potential asset of unknown value. And we knew that if we did nothing, then in all likelihood Simpson would simply wait and probably try to publish the book again for profit.
I had originally signed on with Goldmans for a very limited purpose, to try to acquire Simpson’s right of publicity. Now, the Goldmans’ legal team was being asked to try to collect the monies that Simpson had been paid for the book. I knew only a little about collection matters. On another Nancy Grace show, she asked me point blank what we were doing. All I could say was that we were considering different options. “Excuse me,” she said. “He’s out there spending money, and you are thinking about what to do?” I said the only thing I could, the truth. “I don’t know how to collect money that has already been spent.” Indeed, we could never collect that money.
Shortly thereafter, we met David J. Cook, a judgment and debt collection specialist in San Francisco. He has his own firm, Cook Collection Attorneys, which actively markets the slogan, “Winning is Nothing. Collecting is Everything.” The firm has a website called SqueezeBloodFromTurnip.com “You need me,” David told us. He was right.
David liked to tell a story about how, as a young man, he had a job delivering roasted chickens. Apparently, one rainy night, young David could not get his rear-wheel drive delivery car up a muddy road, and he was just sitting there in his car, overwhelmed by the storm and the smell of chicken. So he turned the car around and backed it up the road. David is a force to be reckoned with, and over the next several months, he and I worked closely together, along with the rest of the legal team, to try to rip the book out of Simpson’s hands.
Before I met David, I had a telephone conversation with Simpson’s former manager, Mike Gilbert. Gilbert indicated that Simpson essentially engaged in what I would describe as shell games. Apparently, Simpson would go to cities and make appearances at autograph signings. A promoter supposedly would give a satchel of cash to a member of Simpson’s entourage. The bag allegedly would pass from hand to hand, and eventually it would end up with Simpson before he left town. On at least one occasion, as I understood it, Simpson received his little bag moments before boarding a plane to return home. If anyone was ever asked if Simpson had been paid, the response would be no. The monies had been handed to a member of his entourage, not to Simpson himself. That is what I had been led to believe, but it did not matter. We simply could not afford to travel all over the country chasing duffel bags that might be filled with cash.
But Simpson was definitely playing a shell game on the If I Did It deal. We learned that a friend of Simpson’s, a Miami attorney named Leonardo Davinci Starke, had created a sham corporation entitled Lorraine Brooke Associates, Inc. (LBA). LBA’s address was a home in Miami that appeared to be owned by Starke’s mother-in-law. Starke appeared to use the home’s address for multiple entities that he created. The home actually had two different addresses, because it was located where one street turned into another street, and Starke used both addresses to create the illusion of separate locations.
It was our understanding that “Lorraine” and “Brooke” were the middle names of two of Simpson’s children, his daughters Arnelle and Sydney. Arnelle is Simpson’s oldest child by his first wife. Sydney is Nicole’s daughter. With Starke’s help, Simpson assigned his own publicity rights to LBA, and then LBA entered into the deal with HarperCollins to do the If I Did It project. LBA entered into that deal by and through an exclusive agent and representative based in Santa Monica. All monies from HarperCollins passed to the Santa Monica agent (who took a 15% commission), then to LBA, and then to Simpson. LBA eventually received some $663,000 in advance payments for If I Did It. Of this sum, at least $630,000 went to Simpson. It was all a fraudulent conduit designed to funnel monies to Simpson beyond the reach of the Goldmans.
Incidentally, if you owe people a lot of money, and you create a corporation to shelter your assets, and that corporation is owned and operated by your children, the Law tends to view that as a badge of fraud upon your creditors. Simpson has four children. Two of them, Sydney and Justin, are his children with Nicole. Each of his children was a 25% owner and shareholder of LBA. Simpson later claimed that he was going to use the book proceeds to help his children. But his children got nothing. Simpson used it all to pay his bills.
When I later questioned Arnelle in her deposition, she indicated that all the Simpson children lived with their father, they all knew about the contents of the book, and they were all promised some of the proceeds:
ARNELLE: Out of that, you know, I know they’re dealing with big money, a lot of money. Not only that, we’re dealing as a family with a lot of different issues that would be going on in regards to this book.
Q: Did your brothers and sisters know that this was the book that was going to be published?
ARNELLE: Yes. They knew about the book and the content of the book, yes.
Q: And they knew about it from when you formed the corporation back in March 2006; is that right?
ARNELLE: Well, they knew that I was considering—not considering—that I was negotiating this deal. And because of that, the money that’s coming, I wanted it to—if it’s going to come through me—basically, I was going to share it with them, and through that start this corporation, to make it legal and legit, basically. Not just, “Here I am taking a check,” and so forth and so on, because I don’t know how to do that. I don’t.
It is my understanding that Sydney and Justin are the beneficiaries of Nicole’s estate and the beneficiaries of the civil judgment against their father for the murder of their mother. So Sydney and Justin are the effective holders of the Brown judgment. I cannot imagine what those children must think and feel every day. But according to Arnelle Simpson’s testimony, they knew about the contents of the book.
When we were pursuing the book, we heard criticisms that publishing the book would hurt these children. Simpson’s children obviously depend on him for support, and he is their father. Do I feel sorry for them? Yes, absolutely, without a doubt. But I have never heard anything that would compel me to turn to Fred and Kim Goldman and say, “I don’t think you should pursue your judgment collection efforts because it might hurt Simpson’s children.”
David Cook had many strategies for pursuing the judgment, but his basic tactic was simple: attack, attack, and attack; quickly, quickly, quickly. Repeat as needed. He spoke of trying to create a cascade of events, of putting Simpson and his camp on the run. That proved to be a very good tactic.
For more than a decade, Simpson felt like he was beyond anyone’s reach, ensconced in his untouchable Miami home and living off his sacrosanct pensions and his under-the-table appearance money. Now he had an asset, the book, which could conceivably be taken from him. I think he was convinced that we would never be able to take it away. I know he did not want us to. He and his lawyers fought us every step of the way.
David filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles to try to unwind or set aside the fraudulent transactions with LBA. The judge dismissed our case and told us to go to Miami. Simpson’s lawyers repeatedly dared us to go there. They believed that we would never take the legal battle into Florida. That same day, we lost another motion in state court. Yale Galanter, Simpson’s attorney, was quoted as saying that he had “kicked” us “to the curb.” Later, he was also quoted as saying that Fred Goldman was a “greedy pig.”
David was unfazed and undeterred by our initial court losses. David’s job as a lawyer is to make deadbeats pay their debts. Now he was trying to squeeze one of the biggest deadbeats of them all, Simpson. At the end of the day when we lost both motions, I watched and listened to David speak in front of a bank of microphones at the Santa Monica courthouse. He said that his legal practice was a “fanatical” one, and that he himself was a “fanatic,” and that he would never give up. I remember that Kim Goldman and I both looked silently at each other with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. Cook meant every word of it. If he could not drive up the muddy hill, then he would turn the car around and back up.
HarperCollins had provided us with a copy of their If I Did It contract with LBA. After the book got shelved, HarperCollins was fairly cooperative, at least as much as they could have been under the circumstances. The contract indicated that HarperCollins had the rights to the book, but LBA had the ability to reclaim the book rights if HarperCollins did not publish the book. HarperCollins repeatedly stated that it was not going to publish the book. So at some point, the book rights would revert back to LBA, and from LBA to Simpson. That much seemed certain.
David issued a written levy on HarperCollins for the book rights. The levy was issued out of the same California court that awarded the original judgment, and the effect of the levy was to assert that we owned the book rights, because they were an asset of Simpson and Simpson owed the Goldmans a lot of money on the judgment. By way of the levy, we asserted a secured claim to the book rights, much like a bank’s security interest in a home. This secured claim proved to be pivotal. We could not seize the monies paid for the book project, because they were long gone. But we could go after any and all future monies that the book might earn, and we could also ask the Court to order a sheriff’s sale of all of right, title, and interest in the book. Much like a home foreclosure, we could ask the Court to sell those rights, whatever those rights might be worth, to the highest bidder, and then we could use the monies from the sale to partially satisfy the judgment.
It was a memorable day in March of 2007 when the Los Angeles Superior Court, the Hon. Gerald Rosenberg, heard and considered our motions regarding the If I Did It book. We made several requests that day, but the most important proved to be our request to have the Court order a sheriff’s sale of all of Simpson’s and LBA’s rights, titles, and interests in the book. At the time, LBA was still treated as a distinct legal entity, separate and apart from Simpson, and our judgment was only against Simpson.
Judge Rosenberg had the patience of a saint. He listened carefully and at great length to everything that everyone had to say. Simpson and his lawyers, including Galanter, vehemently argued that the Court had no authority to interfere with LBA, which effectively had all legal right, title, and interest in the book. If we could not reach LBA, then any victory over Simpson would be hollow, and his artifice of a fraudulent corporate shell would succeed. We had to show that LBA was merely a corporate veil under which Simpson (and only Simpson) was operating. The debate was extensive, and then the Judge adjourned the hearing and took the matter under submission. At the time, it seemed clear that he would give us our requested relief as to Simpson, but it was not clear at all that he would grant our request as to LBA. Courts are reluctant to “pierce the corporate veil” and disregard the existence of a corporation, because it destroys one of the primary reasons for creating a corporation, to create a separate legal entity. But Courts will do so if it appears that a corporation is merely a fraud.
Galanter left the courthouse confident, but later that afternoon, the Judge issued his written ruling, and he found that LBA was merely a “surrogate” of Simpson for all purposes relating to the book, and that our requested relief extended not just to Simpson, but also to LBA! This was a fantastic result for us. It was the first time that Simpson had suffered any real legal defeat in a long time. It was also the first time, but not the last, that a Court would effectively find that LBA was a sham, and it was the turning point in our pursuit of the book. The press immediately started running stories about the Court’s ruling.
But the battle was far from over. Judging by his lawyer’s reactions, Simpson was not happy about the ruling. His lawyers moved for reconsideration, and Simpson even brought in separate counsel to represent LBA, a lawyer named Tappan Zee. We were in Court one day and everyone, even the Judge, said the same thing: “You mean like the bridge?” We went back to Court a number of times to clarify aspects of the ruling, and to resist challenges by Simpson’s lawyers and the new lawyers hired to represent LBA. In the end, the Court affirmed the prior rulings, and the sheriff’s sale of the book rights was set to go forward on April 17, 2007.
There were a number of problems with the sheriff’s sale, not the least of which was that the demand for the book, after the public outrage, was minimal. David Cook had a backup plan. If nobody wanted to buy the book rights for a significant sum, then we could use our own judgment to credit bid at the auction. Under California law, the unpaid $19 million judgment accrued interest at 10% per year, so in 10 years it had doubled. It is now worth over $40 million. If we did not get a good bid at the auction, then we could buy the book ourselves and reduce our judgment accordingly. We had a huge credit card, and it was unlikely anyone would approach our credit limit. But bless them if they could.
Of course, there was one other huge problem. If we acquired the book, there was little else we could do with it other than shop it and sell it, most likely to a publisher, and use the proceeds to partially satisfy the judgment. Needless to say, Kim and Fred were not entirely pleased with the prospects of selling and publishing the book. Much talk, consideration, and anguish went into the decision to take the book away from Simpson, as the Goldmans knew they would likely be compelled to publish it. I did the only thing I could do as a lawyer. I followed the Law, and I strongly encouraged Kim and Fred to do the same. The Law gave us a judgment, and it imposed on us the duty to enforce it. Either we enforced that judgment, or we let it go. If we were going to enforce it, we would have to enforce it in the manner that the Law allowed. If the Law allowed us to acquire and sell the book, then so be it. I had to believe, and I encouraged my clients to believe, that if the Law supported that result, then that was the result that should be pursued, even if the end was not clear.
Around this time, David Cook and I had a very memorable meeting with a very unlikely guest, Judith Regan. One of David’s attorney friends had represented Judith on another matter, and David and this other lawyer had arranged for a meeting at David’s offices in San Francisco. David was very excited about the meeting, and he hoped that if we acquired the book, Judith might be able to help us with the project. I looked forward to finding out as much about the book as I could from someone who had been instrumental in creating it.
I flew up to David’s old offices in San Francisco (he has since moved to a new location). I loved David’s offices. He occupied a whole floor of an old building, and the work space was really a long, thin corridor, with off-shooting rooms and offices.
There were old creaky wooden floors with books, papers, boxes, notes, artwork, and mementos stacked up and piled everywhere. David’s office staff and attorneys were moving around, and some even seemed to appear out of nowhere from behind the various stacks.
When Judith Regan arrived, we adjourned to one of the tiny back rooms, and David asked the occupant, one of his attorneys, to leave. Then the door closed, and it was just the three of us, David, Judith, and me, in this tiny cluttered room, with the sound of San Francisco trolley cars in the background. David’s attorney friend who had helped arrange the meeting participated on a speaker phone.
Things started pleasantly enough, but there was some tension in the air. Judith agreed to meet with us, but she was not happy and she had a lot she wanted to get off her chest. She talked about how she was in the business of telling stories, and this was a great story, and how the book was a good idea and a good project, and about how everyone had attacked her. When she talked about the book and the interviews, she said that she thought everyone would appreciate that she was going to get Simpson’s confession. She even said that Simpson was taking great risks in penning the book, because he might still be criminally prosecuted for what he said.
For some reason, I remarked that Simpson would simply say that the book was a “hypothetical,” and I had the HarperCollins contract in my lap and I gently tapped on that very language in the contract. I thought Judith was going to jump up out of her seat. “It is not hypothetical!” she screamed. And then she let off a little steam.
But things calmed down, and we actually went on to have a productive discussion. Judith had some good ideas for reviving the book, and she was willing to consider getting involved with it again, but she said that all of the monies had to go to charity. She said she did not want anything for herself.
I enjoyed meeting Judith. She was direct, and she did not hide her strong feelings. We all parted on reasonably good terms. After we walked her out, David turned to me with a big smile on his face and he said, “Well, I thought that went well. It felt like she sucked the oxygen out of the building.”
But after the meeting, it seemed clear that we would not be able to work with her. For one thing, I did not think the Goldmans would agree to bring her on board. It was hard enough just to explain to them that we felt the need to meet with Judith. Moreover, Fred and Kim had already decided to give a portion of any book proceeds to charity, and I told David that Judith did not have the right to control how Fred used the remaining judgment proceeds. The judgment reflected the loss of Fred’s son, not Judith’s. That was my last encounter with Judith.
The sheriff’s sale was scheduled to occur on Tuesday, April 17. Prior to the scheduled sale, I made appearances on Larry King’s show and on Catherine Crier’s show. Yale Galanter also appeared, and he kept saying that the sale would not go forward. On both occasions, he told me on television, “Don’t pop the champagne just yet.” I did not know what he was talking about. The Court had ordered the sale, and all of Simpson’s legal challenges had been denied. I imagined that one day we might be able to send Galanter a box with an empty champagne bottle inside, along with a note, “Is it time yet?” But I never viewed the sale itself as any kind of final victory. I knew we had many other things to do after that sale.
On Friday, April 13, we appeared before Judge Rosenberg to address one final challenge to the court-ordered sheriff’s sale. This time the Browns were trying to stop the sale or take half the proceeds. The chief spokesperson for the Browns is Nicole’s sister, Denise Brown. The Brown judgment, however, is held by her father, Lou Brown, as the representative of Nicole’s estate. It is my understanding that the beneficiaries of Nicole’s estate are Nicole’s and O.J. Simpson’s children—Sydney and Justin. Thus, the Brown judgment is for the benefit of Sydney and Justin.
The Browns essentially argued that the sale should not go forward, but if it did go forward then they were entitled to half the proceeds. Their request could not be granted. Among other things, they had not perfected the renewal of their judgment. Under California law, judgments are valid for 10 years, and then they must be renewed. Our judgment had been renewed, as had the Browns,’ but, ironically, the Browns had not properly served notice of their renewal on Simpson himself. This defect was fatal to their claim. Until they properly served notice of their renewal, they could not take steps to enforce their judgment.
By 11 a.m. on Friday the 13th, our hearing in Santa Monica had ended. We discussed plans to travel to Sacramento where the sheriff’s sale would take place. By 11:30 a.m., we were advised that LBA had filed for bankruptcy in Miami. It was our understanding that the federal bankruptcy petition was filed shortly after the denial of the Browns’ last-ditch effort to stop the sale. It certainly seemed to us that Simpson’s people were waiting to see whether the Browns’ petition would stop the sale. And when it did not stop the sale, the bankruptcy petition was immediately filed. In a Newsweek article, the Browns’ chief lawyer, Greg Hafif, said: “One hates to ever say you are on the same side as Simpson, but in this case we’re happy the sale isn’t going forward.”
David had been talking about the possibility of a bankruptcy proceeding, and his instinct certainly was right in that regard. For more than a week, he had been discussing with me how we might react to a bankruptcy filing, but for some reason I just did not think that Simpson’s camp would actually do it. The bankruptcy filing meant that the sheriff’s sale could not go forward. When a debtor files for bankruptcy, there is an immediate stay on enforcement of any debt or claim against the debtor, in this case LBA. The sheriff’s sale was on hold indefinitely. But the book rights were still there, and now they were frozen in bankruptcy.
In retrospect, I suppose the bankruptcy was Galanter’s master plan to prevent us from “popping the champagne.” In the same Newsweek story that quoted Hafif (the article was entitled “Frozen O.J.”), the reporter also quoted Galanter:
Simpson’s lawyer Yale Galanter believes the bankruptcy will prevent the Goldmans from ever participating in the troubled book’s sale. “There’s not a way in the world that Goldman is ever getting a dime,” crows Galanter, who represents Simpson but not his children or LBA and did not file the bankruptcy claim. “Now [the Goldmans] will never ever, ever have anything to do [with this book.”
Even the Newsweek reporter seemed to think that one day Galanter might have to eat some crow. Obviously, the bankruptcy was Galanter’s and Simpson’s last-ditch effort to prevent us from getting the book. But in the end, it completely backfired on them.
We were now faced with a decision. Should we take the fight into the bankruptcy court in Miami, or do we try to get out of that court and pursue the sheriff’s sale in California? We had grounds to try to extricate our claim from the bankruptcy case. LBA’s bankruptcy petition and bankruptcy schedules were a mess, no doubt due to the haste with which they were prepared in an effort to file the bankruptcy just before the sheriff’s sale. Among other things, the bankruptcy papers were not accurate, and they were not signed under oath by an authorized representative of LBA.
Ultimately, we decided to stay in the Miami bankruptcy court, because we hoped that the bankruptcy court would give us better title to the book rights. If we proceeded with the sheriff’s sale in California, we would have acquired similar rights, but we would have faced other potential lawsuits and claims from those contesting the validity and extent of our title. Under broad federal bankruptcy court jurisdiction, those competing claims could be considered and subordinated. To the extent possible, we could try to minimize the prospect of future litigation, although we could not eliminate it.
We also had another good reason to pursue the matter in Miami: excellent local bankruptcy counsel. Jonathan Polak was able to enlist the help of Paul Battista, with the law firm of Genovese Joblove & Battista in Miami. Polak had a great knack for bringing in good attorneys at the right time. He brought in Cook, and he brought in Battista, who was also assisted by one of his partners, Brett Amron, and a number of other personnel at the firm. They were all excellent. We could not have been in better hands.
There were several other elements that helped us in the Miami bankruptcy court. First and foremost, it quickly became clear that LBA was a sham, and the bankruptcy filing was a bad-faith attempt to stop the sheriff’s sale. LBA’s own bankruptcy paperwork was like Swiss cheese, full of holes. There were misstatements and omissions, and they were not trivial. For example, LBA had paid a ton of money to Simpson, but that was not disclosed in the bankruptcy paperwork.
LBA received $663,000 in advance payments for the If I Did It project, and Simpson received $630,000 of that advance, which he allegedly used to pay off a home equity line, back taxes, etc. Most of the remaining $33,000 was used to pay Starke and to purchase a Lincoln Navigator. What little remained of LBA’s money was used to pay for things like Arnelle’s cell phone bills. When LBA finally filed for bankruptcy, it only had about $300. As far as we know, other than a few cell-phone bills and other incidental items for Arnelle, none of the money ever went to Simpson’s children, although each child supposedly was promised a share of the book proceeds.
Simpson and Starke had named Arnelle as the president of LBA because they could control her. At her deposition in the bankruptcy proceeding, Arnelle repeatedly stated that she was just “overwhelmed.” She knew the general business purpose of the LBA corporation—to sell the If I Did It book—but she had no knowledge of the day-to-day operations. She admitted that Starke handled the company, and Starke himself testified that Arnelle was really just a “people person.” It was Starke’s job to run LBA, which effectively meant that Simpson was in control. I actually felt a little sorry for Arnelle. Her father was using her and hiding behind her, and now she was the one getting grilled at her deposition, when it should have been him on the hot seat. It seemed to me that Arnelle did whatever Starke and her father told her to do.
Another reason to stay in Miami was that we were the only “secured” creditor of the estate, because Cook had levied on the book assets. Thus, our judgment was secured or collateralized to the extent of those book assets. All the other creditors were “unsecured.” A secured debt is like a home mortgage. The home is the collateral, and if you default on the loan the bank gets the home. Unsecured debt is like credit card debt. No collateral, no security interest. In bankruptcy, secured creditors have claims to their collateral. Unsecured creditors have claims to whatever is left after administrative expenses, usually only pennies on the dollar, if that.
On top of all of this, we were in front of an extremely good, no-nonsense bankruptcy judge, the Hon. A. Jay Cristol. Judge Cristol did not smile on the kinds of tactics and games that Simpson’s people appeared to be playing.
In short, rather than preventing us from taking the book away, as Simpson and Galanter had hoped, the bankruptcy proceeding aided us. They probably would have done better to let the sheriff’s sale go forward.
We pursued negotiations with the bankruptcy trustee, Drew Dillworth, and his counsel, Brian Rich, both of whom are extremely capable and intelligent lawyers. The trustee is the bankruptcy court’s appointed representative over the bankruptcy estate. His job, among other things, is to supervise the bankruptcy, gather the assets of the debtor, and, if possible, equitably distribute those assets to all the creditors. We eventually reached a proposed settlement with the trustee to acquire the book rights, publish the book, and give the bankruptcy estate 10% of the net proceeds after all publishing costs. This was a good deal for the bankruptcy estate, because if our secured interest was upheld in bankruptcy (which we believed would happen), then we would have taken the book rights completely out of the estate and given the estate nothing. We also agreed that all of the 10% would go to pay administrative claims and the claims of all the other creditors of the LBA estate, primarily the Browns, i.e., Sydney and Justin. Their father had not given them anything from the book, but now we would work to try to generate monies that might flow to them. We also agreed not to share in any of the 10% distributed to the estate, although we had the right to do so.
At the final hour, the Browns again tried to oppose the settlement, and they made their second attempt to try to get money from our efforts to seize the book. The Browns’ counsel strenuously argued, among other things, that the Browns were entitled to 40% of the book proceeds, and they argued that the settlement disproportionately favored the Goldmans. The Browns had no sound legal basis to make these claims. At best, they were simply very large unsecured creditors of the bankruptcy estate, like a number of other creditors (including Simpson’s own attorneys, Starke and Tappan Zee, all of whom claimed they were owed money). Judge Cristol and the bankruptcy trustee rejected all of the Browns’ arguments and claims. They concluded, in part, that any benefit to LBA’s creditors could only come from the successful sale of the book, and the Goldmans were best positioned to maximize any such sale proceeds. They also indicated that if our secured claim was upheld after a trial in bankruptcy, then the estate would get nothing.
On July 30, 2007, after an extensive hearing, Judge Cristol approved our proposed settlement. The Court wanted assurances from Fred that he would do his best to market, sell, and “maximize” the value of the book asset for the benefit of the bankruptcy estate and all of its creditors. Holding back tears, Fred (who had not experienced any real sense of victory in some time) thanked the Court for approving the settlement agreement, and he promised to do his best to publish and sell the book.
But as amazing as it sounds, getting the book was only half the battle. In promising to “maximize” the asset, Fred and all of us had taken on another awesome task. Public contempt for the book had not dissipated, and now we were being blamed for it. Although we would not change one word of Simpson’s original text, we had to transform and repackage the book, and we had to find a brave publisher who would share our vision. We were very fortunate to connect with Eric Kampmann of Beaufort Books, Inc., who had the courage and imagination to do what no other publisher would—help us. At that time, no well-known publisher would touch “that book,” which had been publicly scorned and was perceived to have toppled Judith Regan from her perch.
When it became clear that we were going to get the book, the Goldmans received inquiries from Oprah Winfrey’s producers about doing a show featuring Kim Goldman and Denise Brown. As everyone knows, Oprah Winfrey’s show is the ultimate platform for promoting a book. There was never any real question about whether the Goldmans would do the show: of course they would. Not only were Kim and Fred compelled by their own immense emotions toward this final resolution with Denise and the world regarding the book, but they were also obligated to do it. Fred had promised the bankruptcy court that he would “maximize” the asset. They were going to do the show in mid-September 2007, and we were going to time the book’s release with the airing of the show.
Denise publicly criticized the Goldmans and everyone else involved with the book. But nearly all of Denise’s criticisms ultimately rang hollow. She told us to enforce the judgment some other way. There was no other way. She told us that publishing the book would hurt Sydney and Justin. Maybe there was some truth to that, but the real truth was that the book and the story behind it were never going to go away, and the children would always have to live with that.
During the last bankruptcy hearing, Judge Cristol remarked that it was “sad” that two families who had endured the same tragedy seemed at odds with each other over the book. It was a theme we had heard before. But the unfortunate truth was that the conflict over the book merely reflected a much deeper divide. Denise said that Fred and Kim were hypocrites, having flip-flopped against the book and then for it. It is true that Fred and Kim did an about-face on the book. But the motivation for everything they did was always the same. They were always opposing the killer any way they could, and they were always trying to enforce their own sense of justice any way they could. That never changed. By taking the book away from the killer, Fred and Kim were empowered to use the book against him. It was the only thing we could give them, and it was the only thing they could do. They had to enforce the judgment any way they could, or they had to simply walk away and let it all go. As you can imagine, for Fred and Kim Goldman, the latter choice was never really an option. The decision to pursue a judgment like this is a very personal choice, and no one should be faulted for choosing to pursue that fight. For all practical intents and purposes, the Browns have not pursued that fight, and I suspect they have had very little choice. Are the Browns supposed to enforce the children’s judgment against their own father? After the murders that forever united them, the Browns and the Goldmans have both had grim and difficult choices to make. I am sure that Lou Brown had to do what he felt was best for his family and for his grandchildren. Fred also has to do what he feels is best for his family.
Many things during the week of the Oprah show and the publication of If I Did It seemed a little surreal. On Tuesday, September 11, 2007, we were at Los Angeles International airport ready to fly to Chicago, and the entire airport stopped for several minutes of silence in observance of the 9–11 attacks. We stopped and stood at the x-ray machines, while people were told not to move or speak. When we arrived in Chicago that night, we had telephone discussions with Oprah’s producers. Denise had previously committed to the show, and then she had backed out of it. Oprah’s people somehow got Denise to come back on, but Denise would not take the same stage with the Goldmans. So they were going to do a taped interview with her, and then they were going to play the taped interview after Kim and Fred did a live interview with Oprah. In theory, neither side would know in advance what the others were going to be asked, or what they would say. I remember discussions with the producers over timing, and who would have the last word. Deep down, I was just concerned about whether we were walking into some type of ambush. I remember telling them that I just wanted the format to be fair. They said they were committed to making it fair. They told us that Oprah would open the show by saying that she would not read the book or endorse the book, but she would let her audience decide for themselves. That sounded fair to me.
In the week preceding the taping, I had to supply the show’s producers with countless documents and requests for information to support all of our facts and legal positions: the judgment itself, statutes to support the current value of the judgment, the various court orders and agreements regarding the book, transcripts of hearings and deposition testimony, etc. It was exhaustive, but I answered every question. I wanted to spend time trying to help Kim and Fred prepare. Of course, there was not a single question that anyone could ask them that we had not already discussed and agonized over ourselves countless times.
We walked into the great chamber of the Oprah Show. The audience was buzzing and the air felt electric. When Kim and Fred walked on and took their seats, waiting for Oprah to appear, the entire audience fell silent. And when Oprah walked on, the audience erupted. The show began with a very well done videotape depicting the history of the whole affair. There were bloody images from the murder, a scene of Simpson in a golf cart bragging about how he would not pay the judgment, and an image of Fred telling everyone when the book first came out that it was trash and no one should buy it or read it. Oprah’s people were tough, but they were fair. Oprah began by telling everyone that she would not buy the book, or read the book, but that everyone should decide for themselves. And through it all, Fred and Kim were nearly flawless. Kim was fearless and never backed down (she seldom does), and Fred choked back tears when he talked about how one person might read the book and avoid a similar fate as Ron and Nicole. Many audience members clearly sympathized with the great difficulties that Fred and Kim had to bear. All things considered, the Oprah appearance was as successful as we could have hoped.
After the show, we flew to New York for more media appearances over the next two days. We got into our hotel rooms very late that night. The next day, Thursday, September 13, started off quietly and peacefully enough, and it seemed to end that way, but ultimately that would not be the case. That was the day the Oprah show actually aired nationwide (it had been taped the day before). Fred and Kim got up early, and they did television and radio interviews throughout the day. But for me, it was mostly a day of rest, and there was not much to do. In the afternoon, I met up with Kim and our publicist, Michael Wright, for lunch. I enjoyed being in New York, and I was scheduled to do one television interview with Star Jones later that afternoon. In the early evening, we were all supposed to get together to watch the Oprah show with the publisher, Eric Kampmann, and all of the other people at Beaufort Books who had helped with the book. It was our little gathering to enjoy the culmination of all our hard work and sacrifice. Little did we know that, at almost the exact same time that we were gathered together in New York to watch the Oprah show, there was a very different gathering and operation unfolding in Las Vegas. Indeed, we did not even hear about it until the next day, which proved to be a truly memorable one.
We began very early on Friday, September 14, with Fred and Kim doing a live interview on the Today Show. After the Goldmans finished the show, we headed to other television studios, including Fox News. And then we started to get reports of amazing events that had occurred in Las Vegas the night before. As Fred and Kim were on television talking about the book, we began receiving news that Simpson had been arrested. Allegedly, Simpson, leading some sort of posse, had broken into a Las Vegas hotel room at gunpoint to take back certain sports memorabilia items that allegedly belonged to Simpson. Every time we heard another report, it sounded worse and worse.
I do not believe that it was a coincidence that Simpson and his crew went into that Vegas hotel room on the same day that the Goldmans were appearing nationwide on the Oprah show (which had been advertised for some time), and on the same day that the book (“his” book) was being released to book stores nationwide. Simpson appears to have a recurring pattern of behavior.
After the murders, Simpson was supposed to appear at a criminal hearing, but he did not want to go, so he hopped into a white Bronco and led everyone on a police chase. After the Las Vegas incident, it is my understanding that he was instructed by a judge, as a condition of his bail, not to communicate with any of his co-defendants. But apparently he wanted to communicate with one of those co-defendants, and so he tried to communicate with one of them, in blatant violation of the Court order. He owes a lot of money to quite a few people, including the Goldmans, the State of California (taxes), various attorneys, and even the bail bondsman who sprung him out of jail in Vegas. But he does not want to pay them, so he does not pay them. One cannot predict exactly how he is going to act, but if something is really important to him, and he does not get it, then the pattern of behavior speaks for itself: he will try to find a way to retake control.
Simpson fought us tooth and nail every step of the way as we tried to get the rights to If I Did It. On the very same day that our victory over his book was complete, the day that the Goldmans were on national television to talk about the book, which is now their book, he busted into a Las Vegas hotel room. I later heard that Simpson actually contacted the FBI three weeks before the break in, and he indicated to them that he wanted to televise the “sting operation.” Who knows precisely what was going through Simpson’s mind? But I do not think the timing of his “sting operation” and the Goldmans’ book release and television appearance were a mere coincidence. If you recall his Vegas mug shot, Simpson actually had a little smile on his face.
Thomas Riccio was one of the people who helped Simpson conduct the sting operation, and apparently Riccio was wired and made the tape recording. I spoke with Riccio, and he took credit for the timing, explaining that he wanted to get paid for the operation by having Simpson sign copies of the book, and he could not get that payment until the book actually came out. I believed him, but I also think there is a little bit more to the timing issue than all of that. Why, after all these years, did Simpson suddenly feel compelled to go after long-lost memorabilia items? And why did he want it televised? Maybe losing the book and feeling economically and legally vulnerable for the very first time caused him to feel like he had lost control, and he was determined to get it back somehow.
Regardless, another chapter of the story is yet to be played out in Vegas, and who knows if it will be a final chapter or not? The wheels of justice sometimes turn in slow and strange ways. Maybe Simpson will get a long-term jail sentence as a result of the Vegas incident, or maybe he will not be convicted of anything at all, or maybe something else will happen.
It has been said that evil triumphs when good people do nothing. We did all that we could, and we did it to the best of our abilities. We achieved what nearly everyone thought was impossible, and I am proud of our efforts. We had a very good team.
You can make up your own mind about the book. In Simpson’s hands, this book was his attempt to try to explain, on his own perceived stage, why he supposedly should not be blamed for committing the murders. But in Fred’s and Kim’s hands, this futile explanation is revealed for what it really is: an interrogation-room confession with all of us standing on the other side of the one-way mirror. You can decide for yourself which aspects of his confession are true or false. But it is his confession. I think that Simpson hates it when people try to put words in his mouth. Now, he cannot escape it. Whenever he sees the cover of this book, he will see his own words shouting back at him in bright red ink from a black page, just like that dark and bloody night—“I Did It.” There is no “if.”