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Posted: 2024-04-14T18:32:20Z | Updated: 2024-04-14T21:02:38Z 'Zero, Nothing': O.J. Simpson Estate To Challenge $33.5 Million Payout To Victims' Families | HuffPost

'Zero, Nothing': O.J. Simpson Estate To Challenge $33.5 Million Payout To Victims' Families

Simpson was acquitted of criminal charges but found liable for the wrongful deaths of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in civil court in 1997.
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The executor of O.J. Simpson s estate says he will do everything in his power to keep the families of murder victims Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson from seeing payment of a $33.5 million wrongful death judgment that was granted to them by a jury in a California civil case in 1997.

Simpson, a former NFL star and actor, died on Wednesday at the age of 76, and on Friday, his will was filed in Nevadas Clark County court.

The documents, reviewed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal , show the disgraced football players estate was placed into a trust last year with longtime lawyer Malcolm LaVergne named as executor.

LaVergne, who had represented Simpson since 2009, told the Review-Journal that the value of Simpsons property has yet to be totaled but that he plans to keep the families from receiving any further payouts.

Its my hope that the Goldmans get zero, nothing, he said. Them specifically. And I will do everything in my capacity as the executor or personal representative to try and ensure that they get nothing.

Open Image Modal
O.J. Simpson appears during the criminal trial over the deaths of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in 1994. The late athlete's estate executor has pledged to block the victims' families from seeing payment of a $33.5 million wrongful death judgment granted in a 1997 civil case.
Ted Soqui via Getty Images

In 1995, Simpson was acquitted of murder charges in the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife and her friend Goldman in what was then called the trial of the century.

Years later, a civil court determined the athlete had willingly and wrongfully caused Goldmans and Brown Simpsons deaths.

LaVergne contends that the court never officially ordered Simpson to pay the judgment, which David Cook, a lawyer for Ron Goldmans father, told The New York Times has ballooned to $114 million after nearly three decades of accumulating interest.

LaVergne also took issue with how the Goldmans handled the publication of Simpsons 2007 memoir, If I Did It, which they retitled If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer after winning control of the manuscript in court.

Before his death, Simpson claimed he was living solely on NFL and private pensions.

As part of the civil jurys decision, he was forced to auction off his 1968 Heisman Trophy, and hundreds of other pieces of valuable property were also seized. The trophy was auctioned for $230,000 in 1999, but its unclear how much of those proceeds went to the judgment.

In 2007, Simpson sought to regain property that had been sold off by orchestrating an armed robbery of memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas. He was sentenced and imprisoned until his parole in 2017.

Court documents filed in 2022 and reviewed by the Times showed that the Goldman family had received only around $132,000 from Simpson.

Goldmans father, Fred Goldman, and sister Kim Goldman reacted to news of Simpsons death in a statement on Thursday, lamenting how the hope for true accountability has ended.

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