O.J. Simpson appears at an evidentiary hearing in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas on May 14, 2013. (Photo: Ethan Miller via AP, pool, file)
By Ken Ritter Associated Press
Saturday, June 19, 2021
LAS VEGAS — O.J. Simpson will keep fighting recent court orders in Nevada that he owes at least $60 million in judgments stemming from the 1994 killings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman, his lawyer said Friday.
Attorney Malcolm LaVergne said he intends to ask the Nevada Supreme Court to overturn one judge's order to pay the slain man's father, Fred Goldman, and another judge's order in favor of Paul Dorsey, a Connecticut man holding rights to collect the wrongful death claim of Ron Goldman's mother, Sharon Rufo.
"I will be appealing both of those," LaVergne said, "and there will be more motions at the trial level."
The flurry of court activity represents another turn in a more than two-decade fight by Ron Goldman's parents to collect some $33.5 million that a California civil jury ordered Simpson to pay in 1997, two years after he was acquitted of double murder in what came to be known as "The Trial of the Century."
New court filings followed a March 31 settlement of Simpson's 2019 lawsuit against The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, a hotel-casino where he alleged he was defamed by unnamed employees telling a celebrity news site he had been banned from the property in November 2017 for being drunk and disruptive.
LaVergne refuses to say if money changed hands in the settlement.
"They can't prove there are any settlement proceeds," he said Friday, promising to litigate "to the very end."
In court filings, attorneys for The Cosmopolitan point to a confidentiality clause of the agreement and declare the resort "did not give any money or property to Mr. Simpson pursuant to the settlement."
The Cosmopolitan previously argued that Simpson couldn't be defamed because his reputation was already tarnished by his criminal and civil trials in the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend, and by his conviction and imprisonment in Nevada in a 2007 armed robbery case.
Simpson was convicted in Las Vegas in 2008, but has always maintained he and five men confronting two memorabilia dealers at a casino hotel room were just trying to retrieve personal mementoes stolen from him following his 1995 acquittal in Los Angeles. Two of the men had guns.
Attorney Craig Newman, representing Dorsey, pointed Friday to a June 7 court order keeping Simpson on the hook for at least $4.6 million. But Newman acknowledged there can be more court fights — including to determine if Simpson actually received money from The Cosmopolitan.
Attorney Larson Welsh, representing Goldman, was out of the office Friday and did not immediately respond to emails about a June 3 ruling favoring Fred Goldman.
The slain man's father has hounded Simpson for years and contends Simpson has never willingly paid any of the judgment. Nevada court records list the amount of Goldman's claim now at $58 million.
Simpson, 74, lives in a gated golf course community in Las Vegas. He remains on parole following his release from prison in July 2017 after serving nine years for armed robbery, kidnapping and assault with a weapon.
The NFL Hall-of-Famer, former sports commentator, movie actor and commercial pitchman has declined to discuss his finances other than to say he lives on pensions.
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