Cossack On O.J. Being Held Without Bail
LOS ANGELES -- If the Goldman family has its way, it may
soon own the sports memorabilia O.J. Simpson is accused of
committing armed robbery to recover for himself. One man charged
along with the former football star said Tuesday that the Las Vegas
hotel room dispute seemed like a setup.
Walter Alexander, 46, said Simpson may have been tricked because
the memorabilia dealer who tipped him off also recorded everything
on tape.
"It sounds like a setup to me," Alexander told ABC's "Good
Morning America" on Tuesday. He said Simpson had thought the
memorabilia belonged to him after getting a call from the dealer.
"He did believe that he was going to retrieve his own property," Alexander said.
One of the memorabilia dealers who spoke publicly about the
incident on Monday and described Simpson and a group of men coming
into the hotel room "commando style" was hospitalized later that
day with chest pains, a staff member at Century City Doctors
Hospital said Tuesday.
Kreidler: Not Priceless
Those things O.J. Simpson wanted back badly enough to allegedly crash a Vegas hotel room might not be worth the trouble they caused him, writes Mark Kreidler. Story
Bruce Fromong was transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,
the staff member said, declining to give her name. A Cedars-Sinai
spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a call seeking
information about Fromong's condition.
Simpson was being held without bail Tuesday in Clark County
Detention Center on six felonies, including two counts of robbery
with use of a deadly weapon.
Witnesses and authorities have said that they don't believe
Simpson had a gun but that some of the men with him did. If
convicted, Simpson could receive up to 30 years in state prison on
each robbery count.
The Heisman Trophy winner has been in and out of the spotlight
since he was acquitted of murder in the 1994 deaths of his ex-wife
Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
The Goldman family, which won a civil verdict against Simpson,
has waged a decade-long campaign to track down and claim his assets
to fulfill the civil verdict. It planned to file a request in
Superior Court on Tuesday to obtain ownership of the sports
memorabilia seized.
Assuming that this case is resolved one way or another, at the
end of the case, the stuff will never go back to Mr. Simpson. He's going to walk out of Clark County
empty-handed.
David Cook, an attorney for Fred Goldman, on motion to claim disputed O.J. Simpson memorabelia
David Cook, an attorney for Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, said
he believed Nevada authorities would turn over the items with a
court order after Simpson's criminal case finishes. The items
include Simpson's Hall of Fame certificate, a gold Rolex watch and
the suit Simpson wore on the day he was acquitted, Cook said.
"Assuming that this case is resolved one way or another, at the
end of the case, the stuff will never go back to Mr. Simpson,"
Cook vowed. "He's going to walk out of Clark County
empty-handed."
Another man suspected in the alleged heist surrendered Monday.
Clarence Stewart, 53, of Las Vegas, lived at one of the residences
that police searched early Sunday to recover some of the
memorabilia.
Stewart turned over some of the missing goods, including
footballs bearing autographs, police said. He was being held on six
felony charges, including robbery with a deadly weapon and two
counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
A fourth man, Tom Scotto, was questioned and cleared of
suspicion after police concluded he was not in the room, reducing
the number of outstanding suspects to two, police said. Both were
apparently seeking attorneys and preparing to surrender, police
said.
Alexander, who faces charges almost identical to Simpson's, said
he went to Las Vegas for a wedding and not to see Simpson. "I just
happened to get caught up in a bad situation," he told ABC's
"Good Morning America."
Simpson's arraignment was set for Wednesday. Yale Galanter,
Simpson's lawyer, said he was preparing a bond motion and will ask
for Simpson's release on his own recognizance.
"If it was anyone other than O.J. Simpson, he would have been
released by now," he said.
"You can't rob something that is yours," Galanter said. "O.J.
said, 'You've got stolen property. Either you return it or I call
the police."'
The Goldmans hope the property never finds its way back to
Simpson.
In 1997, a civil jury in Santa Monica returned $33.5 million in
judgments against Simpson in a wrongful-death lawsuit by the
families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
The jury awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages to Ron
Goldman's estate and a total of $25 million in punitive damages,
divided equally between both estates. Despite extensive court
hearings, however, most of the judgment has remained unpaid.
In 1999, seized personal property was auctioned off, raising
only $430,000, more than half of it from the sale of his Heisman
Trophy. The house itself did not generate anything toward paying
the judgment. A bank foreclosed on the home, put it up for auction
and bought it back.
Tuesday's hearing was originally scheduled in connection with
any money the Goldmans say Simpson earned from a video game
featuring his likeness. Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press |