OJ Simpson paid Ron Goldman's family only a small fraction of the $33.5 million he owed them at the time of his death, a lawyer for the Goldman family revealed Friday.
In 1997, after Simpson was acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Goldman, a jury in a civil trial found him responsible for their deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million, which – with interest over the past 27 years — has topped $100 million.
Of that decision, Simpson paid only $133,000, Goldman family attorney David Cook he said People. “He died unrepentant,” Cook said of Simpson. “He didn't want to give a dime, a nickel to Fred [Goldman, Ron’s father]never, nothing, never.”
To avoid paying the Goldmans over the years, Simpson moved from California – where he lived at the time of the murders and where the civil trial took place – to states like Florida and Nevada, where perhaps his biggest income – his pension of the NFL, too. as his residences — were protected from seizure by state law.
“He [still] owed on the current state of the judgment,” Cook said, adding that the judgment with accrued interest is now more than $114 million.
Cook also said a legal team would have to determine the value of Simpson's estate and whether it was worth claiming after his death.
“We need to get a lawyer or a number of lawyers who are going to be dealing with this, very smart people to identify who it is or who it would be, and [start] taking depositions from people and/or finding out who they are and what information we need,” Cook said People. “It's a big deal.”
In the 27 years since the wrongful death trial, the Goldman family scored a victory over Simpson when they obtained the rights (via court order) to the controversial and canceled book If I Did It, which the Goldman family eventually published under the title If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.
Following the news of Simpson's death after a battle with cancer, Fred Goldman said Rolling rock, “The only thing I have to say is that today is just a further reminder of how long we've missed my son, how long he's been gone, and the only thing that matters today is the victims. This is. I do not have anything else to say”.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/o-j-simpson-goldman-family-debt-1235003649/