There just might be such a thing as a scoop that's too Juice-y for its own good.

The family of murder victim Ronald Goldman moved Wednesday to have celebrity gossip site tmz.com held in contempt for posting the never-published manuscript of O.J. Simpson's hypothetical tell-all If I Did It, which the Goldmans are spinning as an actual confession to the murders of Ron and Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson.

At an emergency hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jay Cristol, who ruled last week that Simpson did in fact set up a bogus company to hide the money he received from publisher HarperCollins, said that he would schedule a hearing on the contempt allegation at a later date.

Cristol suggested that TMZ parent companies America Online Inc. and Time Warner Co. could eventually be held financially liable if the Website is found to have violated a court order.

In a statement, TMZ denied any wrongdoing, saying, "We are not covered by, or in violation, of the court's turnover order." Attorney Scott Grossman said that the manuscript also ended up on other Websites and that TMZ only had it up in its entirety for about 10 minutes before taking it down.

Any excerpts that remain are protected under the fair use doctrine, he added.

Simpson, who was found innocent in 1995 of murdering his ex and Goldman but ordered in 1997 to pay $33.5 million to their families after a jury ruled against him in a wrongful death lawsuit, said that he had nothing to do with leaking the manuscript.

"The book was stopped and the only people who made this book come back are the Goldmans, and TMZ also profited," the ex-football star told the Associated Press. "If the book is out on the Internet, I wish they would tell me where it is."

A Santa Monica judge ruled in March that the Goldmans are entitled to any future income Simpson collects from If I Did It, if the book ever makes a dime.

The plan for the book and a companion interview conducted by publisher Judith Regan, through which Simpson was to describe how he would have gone about killing Brown Simpson and Goldman, was scrapped in November after too many complaints about the tastelessness of the project rolled in. The hullabaloo eventually led to Regan's firing at the hands of News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch.

Having received barely any of the money they were awarded, the Goldman family set out to seize control of the rights to the aborted book, accusing Simpson of setting up the Florida-based Lorraine Brooks Associates in order to hide the $800,000 advance he got from News Corp.

The family also went after the residuals Simpson gets from his past TV and movie appearances, with a Los Angeles judge ruling in February that all of the Naked Gun star's royalty checks from previous on-screen work should be turned over to the Goldmans.

Cristol ruled in the Goldmans' favor, as well, Friday, concluding that Lorraine Brooks Associates was merely a means for Simpson to stash his dough. Four days before the book rights were scheduled to be auctioned off in April, the company filed for bankruptcy, effectively putting an end to the sale and allowing Lorraine Brooks to hold onto its piece of the rights for the time being.

Simpson's oldest daughter, Arnelle, identified as the head of the Miami company, was ordered last week to give a deposition in the Goldmans' case against her father, in which they describe Lorraine Brooks as a "sham entity."

The Goldmans' lawyer characterized last week's turn of events as a major stepping stone in his clients' decade-long quest to obtain what is rightfully theirs. He said that Cristol's ruling clears the way for them to pursue their claim to the book rights, which are currently being held by a court-appointed trustee.

"Judge Cristol ruled that Lorraine Brooke Associates is a speed bump on Goldman's journey, for his quest to justice," attorney David Cook told Reuters, adding that his client wanted to obtain the rights to If I Did It and release it under a new title, Confessions of a Double Murderer.

But another of the Goldmans' lawyers, Paul Battista, said Wednesday that, by posting the manuscript, TMZ may have irreparably harmed his clients' financial position.

"I can't tell you how distraught the Goldmans are to hear that this hit the Internet for free," he said.