LAS VEGAS – O.J. Simpson was under investigation yesterday in an alleged break-in and armed robbery at a casino hotel room that netted sports memorabilia. But the former football star said he went there to recover items stolen from him and that there were no weapons involved.
O.J. Simpson
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“Nobody was roughed up,” Simpson said in a phone interview. “What I can't understand is these guys are in a room trying to fence stolen goods and I'm the story.”
The incident at the Palace Station casino once again hurled Simpson into the headlines more than a decade after he was acquitted of killing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in the “Trial of the Century,” only to be found civilly liable for their deaths and ordered to pay a $33.5 million judgment.
While police were mum on details yesterday, the case quickly became a “he said, he said” as Simpson and other men who claimed to be in the hotel room aired conflicting accounts in a city that's supposed to keep its secrets.
“We didn't break into any room. There was no armed robbery,” Simpson told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Las Vegas.
Las Vegas Metro Police Capt. James Dillon said officers responded to a call from the hotel just before 8 p.m. Thursday. The confrontation was reported as an armed robbery involving guns, but he said no weapons had been recovered and that the investigation was in its infancy.
ISAAC BREKKEN / Associated Press
Las Vegas Metro Police Capt. James Dillon said yesterday that no charges had been filed in the Las Vegas incident and that no one was in custody.
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“The victim stated that one of the suspects involved in the robbery was O.J. Simpson,” Dillon said.
He said investigators had video surveillance tapes and photographic images from various locations at the hotel, but didn't disclose what they showed.
Simpson said there were no guns involved and that he went to the room only to get stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with the late FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover.
“It's stolen stuff that's mine,” he said.
Simpson, 60, was questioned by police immediately after the incident Thursday night, and a formal interview was being arranged, Dillon said. No charges had been filed, and no one was in custody.
Simpson said auction-house owner Tom Riccio called him several weeks ago to say some collectors “have a lot of your stuff and they don't want anyone to know they are selling it.”
In Las Vegas for a friend's wedding, Simpson said he arranged to meet Riccio at the hotel. Riccio had set up a meeting with collectors under the guise that he had a private collector interested in buying Simpson's items.
“We walked into the room,” Simpson said in the telephone interview. “I'm the last one to go in, and when they see me, it's all, 'Oh, God.' ”
Simpson said he was accompanied by several men he met at a wedding cocktail party, and that they took the collectibles.
Simpson said he wasn't sure where the items ended up. Dillon said some of the items had been recovered. He didn't specify which collectibles were located.
A message left for Riccio wasn't immediately returned.
Police spokesman Jose Montoya said Simpson told officers he believed the memorabilia were his.
“We're getting conflicting stories from the two sides,” Montoya said.
Bruce Fromong, a collector who testified at Simpson's civil trial, said he was in the room when Simpson barged in with other men.
“Him and some of his guys come busting through the door,” Fromong told celebrity gossip site TMZ.com. “They came in with guns, hollering and screaming.”
Fromong, who reportedly tried to sell the suit Simpson wore when he was acquitted of murder charges, described him as a former close friend and said he couldn't explain the behavior.
“O.J.'s in enough trouble,” Fromong said. “For him to come and do this kind of thing, I don't know what's wrong with O.J. This is stupidity.”
Another collector in the room was Alfred Beardsley, a real estate agent and longtime collector of Simpson memorabilia, some of which he has been ordered to turn over as part of the Goldman family's lawsuit.
Beardsley said an account Simpson gave to the AP about the incident was fairly accurate, except that guns were involved.
“I'm OK. I'm shaken up,” Beardsley said.
Simpson is considered a suspect in the case, Montoya said. He was released after he and several associates were questioned, and he remained in Las Vegas.
“We don't believe he's going anywhere,” Montoya said.
The Clark County District Attorney's Office will decide whether to pursue charges in the casino case.
Simpson was a Heisman Trophy winner in college and a star running back in the NFL. Many of his sports collectibles, including his Heisman Trophy, were seized under court order and auctioned to pay some of the money awarded to the Goldman family and the estate of Nicole Brown Simpson.
Now a Miami resident, O.J. Simpson lives off a sizable pension that could not be seized under the civil judgment. But last year, during a scandal over payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars for his participation in a book about the slayings, he said he needed the money to get out of debt and to “secure my homestead.”
After a deal for Simpson to publish the book written under the title “If I Did It” fell through, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family. On Thursday, the family published the book, retitled “If I Did It: The Confessions of the Killer.”
Fred Goldman, Ron's Goldman's father, said he was stunned by the news from Las Vegas.
“I'm overwhelmed and amazed,” he said. “If it turns out as it is currently being played, I think this shows more of who he is. He is proving over and over and over again that he thinks he can do anything and get away with it.”
Goldman's lawyer, David Cook, said he would seek a court order Tuesday to get whatever items Simpson took in Las Vegas.
