OJ Simpson’s veteran lawyer has vowed to prevent money from his late client’s estate from passing to the families of murder victims Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown.
When Simpson died in Nevada on Wednesday at age 76, he still owed victims’ families more than $100 million.
Simpson was found liable in civil court for $33.5 million for the murders of Ron Goldman and his ex-wife Nicole Simpson in 1997, and the Goldman family has pursued the mounting debt ever since. The sum has now ballooned to $100 million with interest.
But attorney Malcolm LaVergne, who has represented Simpson since 2009 and is now the executor in charge of overseeing the estate, has stated that he is convinced that the Goldman family should not see a cent of Simpson’s estate.
“I’m hoping that the Goldmans get zero, nothing. Them specifically. And I will do everything in my capacity as executor or personal representative to try to ensure that they get nothing,” LaVergne told the Las Vegas Magazine.
OJ Simpson’s lawyer, Malcolm LaVergne (left), has vowed to prevent any money from Simpson’s estate from going to the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown.
When Simpson died in Nevada on Wednesday at age 76, he escaped without paying the victims’ relatives more than $100 million as part of a civil settlement. He is pictured at the conclusion of his 1995 murder trial following a not guilty verdict.
LaVergne notes that even though the families pushed for payments, a court order was never issued that would have forced Simpson to hand over the money following the civil judgment.
However, the Goldman family managed to gain control of Simpson’s controversial book titled “If I Did It.”
In response to public outrage that Simpson profited from the crimes, publisher HarperCollins canceled the book.
A Florida bankruptcy court then awarded rights to the manuscript to the Goldmans in August 2007 to partially satisfy the unpaid civil judgment.
The family seems adamant that they will go after Simpson’s money.
“We have to start over here,” said debt collection attorney David Cook. ‘Let’s work on that. There might be something out there.
Since his 1997 sentencing for the 1994 murders, the Goldmans have garnished Simpson’s income and sued him several times to recover money he earned from television shows and his book, If I Did It. Fred is pictured with his daughter Kim.
As part of his responsibilities as Simpson’s personal representative, Malcolm LaVergne, left, was instructed to pay the cost of a “suitable memorial” at Simpson’s grave.
“We’ve had this problem for a long time,” he added. ‘It could be a trust, it could be an estate. Everything could have disappeared.
The lawyer added: ‘I’m in San Francisco. The lawyers we hired in Nevada were working with me…At this point, we’re just getting started.’
All of Simpson’s other properties were placed in trust in January, although the full value of Simpson’s estate has not been accounted for.
“I can’t make a prediction at this point on what the value of the property is,” said LaVergne, who also exclaimed surprise at being named as executor of the estate.
“I’m baffled as to why he would name me personal representative or executor, but he did, and it’s something I’m going to take very seriously.”
Simpson is said to have lived off his NFL and his private pensions.
Hundreds of valuable possessions were seized as part of the civil jury award and the former football star was forced to auction off his Heisman Trophy, awarded each year to the most outstanding player in college football. It sold for $230,000.
As part of the answerAs Simpson’s personal representative, LaVergne was instructed through the will to pay the cost of a “suitable monument” at Simpson’s grave.
OJ Simpson owes $100 million to the families of his murder victims, and DailyMail.com can reveal the families will raise what they can from the NFL star’s estate.
OJ Simpson was found liable in civil court for $33.5 million for the murders of Ron Goldman and his ex-wife Nicole Simpson in 1997.
Ron Goldman’s father Fred (centre) told DailyMail.com that OJ Simpson’s death is “yet another reminder of the loss of my son”. Fred, his daughter Kim and his wife Patty pictured in court during the trial.
Fred Goldman, now 83, is still furious that Simpson managed to avoid paying his civil judgment and told DailyMail.com earlier in the week that the focus should be on his son’s death, not OJ’s.
OJ Simpson pictured in a mugshot following his arrest in Los Angeles, California, in June 1994.
“All I have to say is that this is one more reminder of the loss of my son Ron,” the heartbroken father said. ‘It is yet another reminder of my son’s murder and of the many years we have missed Ron.
‘His death is a reminder that Ron and Nicole were murdered by him. I’m not going to react to my thoughts about his death. I have nothing to say about him. My answer will not be about OJ’s death but about the loss of my son’s life because of him. Thanks for calling. That’s all I have to say.’
The last legal filings Goldman lawyers made were in June 2022, when they claimed that OJ still owed more than $96 million and had paid only $133,000 since 1997.
Since his 1997 sentencing for the 1994 murders, the Goldmans have garnished Simpson’s income and sued him several times to recover money he earned from television shows and his book, If I Did It.
In his interview with DailyMail.com, Cook described how he renewed the sentence in 2015, putting it at $57 million.
Two years later, when OJ was released from a Nevada prison after serving nine years for a robbery and kidnapping conviction, he estimated the debt was “a little less than $70 million.”
And in March 2021, a Nevada garnishment case listed the “amount owed” by Simpson as “$75,164,425.74.”
Court documents from 1992 regarding his separation from his murdered wife Nicole said his net worth at the time was $10.8 million, with a monthly income of $55,000.
But according to documents filed by the Goldmans, he has only paid them $133,000 since obtaining the judgment against him.
Goldman (pictured with her daughter and son) described Simpson’s death as “not a big loss.”
Simpson (pictured at his 1995 trial) became one of America’s most infamous figures after being accused of murder.
OJ avoided paying the Goldmans by filing for bankruptcy in Florida, and his annual NFL pension of between $125,000 and $300,000 was protected from debt collection claims.
He also received $42,000 a year in Social Security.
Cook and his colleagues have previously investigated the assets of Simpson’s children, including alleged real estate purchases in Florida.
But now that the former NFL star has died, the attorney said they will examine the trusts and possibly file them in Nevada probate court to recover the money.
‘I’ve done this job for 47 years. We don’t know what’s in Nevada. “We’ve had this problem for a long, long time,” he said.
“You can be surprised, you can walk up to something and say there’s nothing there.”