O.J.'s Rolex Fake-Out

Fri., Oct. 5, 2007 9:10 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

O.J. Simpson can take his watch and...wear it.

Three days after ordering the former NFL star to turn his Rolex over to the family of murder victim Ron Goldman, a judge has directed the family to return what turned out to be a luxurious-looking designer knockoff back to its original owner.

"It was made by the finest craftsmen in China," Goldman attorney David Cook, who had expressed hope that the Rolex Submariner—James Bond's model of choice in the early films—could be worth as much as $22,000, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's a people's Rolex."

He even had a $10,000 offer from a potential buyer, Cook said.

Los Angeles attorney Ronald P. Slates had warned the court earlier this week of the watch's dubious authenticity, asking whether they knew of any Rolex watches "that sell for 125 bucks."

Apparently, even Simpson overpaid. Cook said that a San Francisco jeweler informed him the timepiece was worth about $100 and therefore "value disabled."

L.A. Superior Court Judge Gerald Rosenberg, who has presided over a number of recent hearings in the Goldmans' decade-long quest to collect on the $33.5 million judgment they were awarded in a 1997 wrongful-death lawsuit against Simpson, had intended for the Rolex to be put toward that amount.

The century-old Swiss manufacturer's handcrafted timepieces can retail for anywhere from a few thousand dollars to more than $100,000.

The wrongful-death judgment excludes jewelry worth less than $6,075, so the fake had to go back. If Rosenberg had allowed Cook to sell the watch for its pop-culture value, Slate said, it might prompt the Goldmans to go after more of Simpson's possessions no matter how low their actual monetary value.

While most of that $33.5 million hasn't been, and possibly never will be, realized, the Goldmans recently won the rights to Simpson's hypothetical tell-all If I Did It, which found a new publisher after the rights changed hands and is now a bestseller.

The Goldmans are marketing the book as a confession, and a smaller typeface was used for the word If on its jacket.

Meanwhile, Simpson is due back in Las Vegas on Nov. 8 for a preliminary hearing in the armed robbery, kidnapping and assault case pending against him and four others for allegedly shaking down two sports-memorabilia dealers Sept. 13 at the Palace Station Hotel & Casino.