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Judge Freezes O.J.'s Book Dough

Thu., Jan. 4, 2007 4:44 PM PST by Natalie Finn

O.J. Simpson may be bouncing a few checks this week.

A federal judge has frozen the money the ex-football star was paid for his recent ill-fated book deal until a ruling is issued on whether the funds should be handed over to the family of murder victim Ron Goldman, whose name would have been front and center had the taste-challenged If I Did It been published.

The book, which was to be issued by the HarperCollins imprint ReganBooks, was a hypothetical tell-all chronicling how Simpson would have killed Goldman and ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson—if those gloves had fit, of course. To help sell the project, Fox was set to air an accompanying TV interview.

The Goldman family, led by patriarch Fred Goldman, sued Simpson last month in U.S. District Court for about $1.1 million in damages, accusing him of a fraudulent conveyance—setting up a bogus corporation to funnel the advance he received from publisher Judith Regan.

This so-called company, Lorraine Brooke Associates, allegedly received at least a $1.1 million deposit, court documents state—a far cry from the $3.2 million sum that Simpson was initially reported to have been paid.

But all of that money, according to the Goldmans' suit, belongs to them because of the $33.5 million wrongful-death judgment they won against Simpson in 1997. (Simpson was acquitted of murder charges in 1994.)

Simpson has reportedly maintained an active, relatively comfortable lifestyle since then, living off his $4 million NFL pension (which the Goldmans can't touch) after being otherwise cleaned out by legal expenses. Meanwhile, the Goldmans' attorney, Jonathan Polak, has said that while Simpson also earns money appearing at trade shows and exhibitions, his clients have seen very little of it.

In September, the Goldmans sued for publicity rights to Simpson's likeness, figuring it might be the only way to ever collect on what they say is owed them.

After News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch slammed the door on the Simpson deal in November, also giving Regan the boot a few weeks later, the erstwhile murder suspect said that he had already spent his latest paycheck, calling the sum "blood money" but saying that the cash was for his two kids, Sydney and Justin.

News Corp., meanwhile, has said publicly that it paid out $880,000 to a third party—i.e., not Simpson—in connection with the project.

And now, Simpson's bank book is sitting in the cooler while the Goldmans' fraud suit is sorted out by U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, who issued the account freeze on Wednesday.

"He can no longer move assets around," Polak told the New York Daily News, adding that he did not know how much money is currently in the Lorraine Brooks account. "We think that is very significant."

The next hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 24.