O.J. Book Auction Postponed; Nicole's Family Wants In
An auction scheduled for Tuesday during which the rights to O.J. Simpson's failed publishing venture, If I Did It, were to be sold to the highest bidder was postponed after Lorraine Brooke Associates, the company that struck the deal for the ex-NFL star, filed for bankruptcy Friday.
Last month, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gerald Rosenberg ordered that any proceeds from the sale and any subsequent profits be turned over to the family of murder victim Ron Goldman, which has been trying to collect on a $33.5 million wrongful death judgment against Simpson since 1997.
A payday seemed imminent, until now. Instead, the company that patriarch Fred Goldman accused Simpson of setting up to hide his book advance is alleging that it's in dire financial straits.
"It's their only and last option," Goldman family attorney David Cook told the Associated Press. "The bankruptcy process is a detour on the road to justice."
Any rights that Lorraine Brooke may have held to the manuscript, which describes how Simpson would have gone about murdering ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, were also supposed to be auctioned off Tuesday, per Rosenberg's ruling.
News Corp. has said that it paid out an $880,000 advance for If I Did It and the companion TV interview conducted by ReganBooks head Judith Regan, who was fired after HarperCollins and News Corp. got raked over the media coals for the Simpson deal.
Simpson has said that the dough vanished quickly, spent on bills and taxes.
A federal judge in California dismissed Fred Goldman's civil suit in which he claimed that Lorraine Brookes was a bogus outfit, set up merely to keep the cash away from his family. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real ruled that his court did not have jurisdiction in the matter and advised the Goldmans to take up their case in a Florida state court, where Simpson is a resident. The case is currently under appeal.
In their ongoing quest to collect at least some of the millions of dollars owed them, the Goldmans continued to pursue Simpson's If I Did It earnings, eventually winning the ruling last month that awarded them any profits from the sale of the book rights.
Rosenberg also ruled in February that all of Simpson's residuals from past television and movie appearances should be going to the Goldmans, as well.
At a hearing Friday, Rosenberg denied a request from the estate of Nicole Brown Simpson requesting a piece of the auction proceeds. Nicole's father, Louis Brown, is the executor of her estate and filed the motion on behalf of her two children.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Browns were also seeking a court order that would allow them to bid on the book rights, with attorney Greg Hafif saying that the family's intent is to "make sure this book is never published."
Meanwhile, Cook, the Goldmans' attorney, criticized the Browns, who are also due some of that $33.5 million, for jumping into this fight so late in the game, whereas his clients have been battling Simpson for years.
Perhaps Nicole Brown Simpson's estate has "a beef with their lawyers," Cook told the Times, "but they didn't have the savvy or the intelligence or whatever to go out and do this.
"We all share the tragedy for the Browns, and they have lots of tears, and our tears are their tears, but they have to stop crying and move forward."
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