OJ Simpson sued over book deal

Ronald Goldman’s father is suing OJ Simpson for any money the former football star and actor received for a cancelled book deal and TV interview that told how he would have killed his ex-wife and Goldman.

The lawsuit filed yesterday in California by Fred Goldman accuses Simpson of “fraudulent conveyance” and alleges that he created a shell corporation that received at least $1.1m (€830,000) as part of the TV interview and book, titled If I Did It.

Lawyer Jonathan Polak said Lorraine Brooke Associates was created in March using the middle name of Simpson’s two children. The lawsuit calls it a “sham entity” formed to defraud Ron Goldman's relatives by preventing them from claiming any of more than $38m (€29m) Simpson owes the family from a judgment against him in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Goldman’s lawsuit seeks about $1.1m ((€830,000) plus punitive damages, although Polak said he believed Simpson has already spent the money he received from News Corporation, the owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins.

Polak said the action’s true aim is to determine how the book and TV interview deals were reached.

“The question in this lawsuit is not about what’s in their bank account right now,” he said. “The issue is, can we unwind this series of transactions and hold those we believe truly are responsible accountable financially?”

Polak said he believes Judith Rean – who was fired last week as a publisher by HarperCollins – and Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corporation, need “to come clean” on their knowledge of how Simpson was reimbursed for the deal.

Andrew Butcher, a spokesman for News Corporation, said the company has been working with Goldman’s family to answer questions about the book deal.

“From the very start, we’d offered every assistance to the family of Ron Goldman. Any information they have asked for regarding the contracts for the Simpson book, we have given them,” Butcher said.

Polak said he has asked News Corporation to destroy all copies of the book, as well as copies of the interview with Fox that was to have aired. He also wants all rights to those books and interviews to be assigned to the Goldman family.

Butcher said News Corporation has destroyed all copies of If I Did It but objected to the request to assign the rights to the Goldmans.

“You don’t own the rights to someone’s book in perpetuity,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s more complicated.”

Simpson said last month that he took part in the project solely for personal profit and acknowledged that any financial gain was “blood money”.

Simpson was acquitted of criminal charges in the 1994 killings.

In 1997, a civil court jury, using a lesser standard of proof than is required at a criminal trial, found Simpson liable for Nicole Brown Simpson’s and Goldman’s stabbing deaths.