Current Trends - O.J. Simpson's Assets: The Final Verdict - Episode 187
- Jenny Rozelle, Host of Legal Tea
- Mar 11
- 7 min read
Hey there, Legal Tea Listeners – This is your host, Jenny Rozelle. Welcome back for another episode, which is a “current trends” topic where we talk about things going on currently that are relevant and pertinent to my estate and elder law world, and/or maybe things I’ve seen on the news or stumbled across on social media. Well today’s episode is inspired by a recent Netflix documentary I binged about OJ Simpson. It is called “American Manhunt: OJ Simpson” and it was interesting. Though, what specifically is inspiring this episode is that Ron Goldman’s family, in the documentary, mentioned something about not being able to recover an assets from OJ in the civil lawsuit because he had hidden or protected his assets. That, of course, piqued my interest so here we are! I have no idea how anyone could not know what happened involving OJ Simpson, but in case I have a listener that needs a refresher course – let’s start there, then dive into what happened with his assets and estate!
O.J. Simpson was a former American football player, actor, and broadcaster who became infamous for his potential involvement in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. OJ was arrested and put on trial in what became known as the "Trial of the Century." Despite a whole lot of evidence against him, he was found not guilty in 1995, primarily due to the defense's argument that the Los Angeles Police Department mishandled evidence and had racial biases. However, in a subsequent civil trial in 1997, he was found liable for the deaths and ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages. Now – that’s the most brief summary in the world, but it gets things set up appropriately for the sake of this episode and what I want to talk about.
Alright, so back to the documentary, in the last episode of the series, Ron Goldman’s sister, Kim Goldman, was talking about the outcome of the civil trial. Not the criminal trial. The subsequent CIVIL trial. She said (and I’m typing this verbatim what she says in the episode) about the amount of damages in the amount of $33.5 million dollars – She said, “It is up to you to collect on that judgment. The system does not provide you with the resources to do that. So while we were, between the two families, awarded a ridiculous amount of money, we were not handed a check because he was able to hide all of his assets and most of his assets are protected. We’ve collected nothing.” When she finished saying that, the person interviewing her asked, “Are you expecting to see any of that money?” She responded, “We are never expecting to see it…” So, it was THAT exchange that I was like, “That’s interesting” and that’s what I really wanted to try and dive into for this episode. Oh, another interesting nugget on this – was that the $33.5 million damages in 1997 … it is said that because the judgment has not been fully addressed after three decades, with interest, that #33.5 million has grown to over $100 million. Wild!
According to an LA Times article, of course linked in the source links for this episode, the article starts by saying this: “For the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, it has been nearly three decades of court fights, painstaking forensic accounting, detective work and, ultimately, frustration. The goal: Make O.J. Simpson pay.” An interesting little twist in all this was that the civil trial happened in 1997 and they’ve been trying to fulfill their damages amount ever since – but the twist is that just last year, in 2024, he passed away. Specifically, he died in April of 2024 at the age of 76. So, that’s certainly probably going to involve and impact his estate since they were initially trying to get him to pay while he was alive – and now he has passed away, so I’m sure their lawyers have shifted their attention to his estate.
Shortly after OJ’s death, an attorney who is serving as the Executor of OJ’s estate, Malcolm LaVergne (pronounced; Luh-verne), shared in an interview that a claim was filed in OJ’s estate by Ron Goldman’s father and that it would be a “valid claim that’s going to be accepted.” Where my brain immediately goes is – If OJ’s assets were hidden and protected while he was alive, I wonder how many assets are even part of his estate? Essentially what I am saying is that Malcolm seems that he is playing nicely, but let’s see if there’s even that much that will flow through OJ’s estate to even recover from… (Can you tell I am scripting this episode out as I do my research? As I say this, I don’t know where this is going!)
Alrighty, so after OJ died, Malcolm, the Executor, filed OJ’s Last Will and Testament with the Clark County Court in Nevada. According to LA Times, his Will is, what is called a, Pourover Will, which means anything asset-wise flowing through OJ’s Will should be transferred into his Revocable Living Trust. As we have talked about before on here, Trusts are not public record, unless they are dragged into Court for some reason – so shortly after OJ’s death, we knew Malcolm became the Executor by filing OJ’s Will, but that anything in OJ’s Trust was private and not immediately disclosed via public record.
Subsequent to the release of that information, more and more started coming out – including that there were some business records, that are typically public record, that show OJ being affiliated with, as the LA Times article said, “a tangled web of corporations.” For example, according to LA Times, “he is listed as the chief executive of a handful of California-based businesses, most of which were created in the 1970s or ’80s. OJ Simpson Enterprises reported $873,000 in sales in March, though it’s not clear where that money originated.” So when Kim Goldman was mentioning about hiding and protecting assets, my guess is this is what she likely meant – typically businesses, if they are being used as legitimate businesses and being ran correctly, they sometimes afford liability protection.
A few things that are reported that OJ did, I wanted to note here, and are from the LA Times article – first, for example, he moved to Florida, which under Florida law, the home could not be taken by creditors. According to a Kiplinger article about this topic, they confirmed this because they referenced the State of Florida’s Constitution – Article X, Section 4 – protects a Florida resident’s home from creditors. In fact, the Constitution, according to Kiplinger, states that “the creditors cannot force a sale of the homestead property before and AT DEATH.” Wild. And whether you like it or not, a strategic move on OJ’s part.
Additionally, he had retirement plans pensions from the NFL and Screen Actors Guild – which also are protected from creditors under federal law. That, too, was confirmed by LA Times as well as the Kiplinger article. According to the LA Times – this is a bit of a silly thing, but wanted to share – so, The Goldmans did get a SMALL glimpse of hope when a Judge ordered OJ to hand over his Rolex watch … well, it was later returned after it was discovered that it was not a real Rolex. So yeah, this is why the families were having a heck of a time fulfilling what they were owed in damages.
Much more recently, there have been a number of more recent things going on with OJ’s estate – like, just in January 2025, according to a NBC article, Malcolm, the Executor of OJ’s estate, filed a lawsuit against OJ’s son’s (Justin), his company, Primary Holdings LLC, claiming that Justin improperly claimed ownership of his OJ’s Las Vegas home. The lawsuit claims that although Primary Holdings purchased the property in August 2022 to protect OJ’s assets from creditors, O.J. remained the de facto owner, covering all expenses until his death in Following his Dad’s passing, Justin allegedly moved into the home and refused to reimburse the estate for OJ’s investment. Malcolm, the Executor, criticized Justin's actions as "selfish" and demanded either repayment of approximately $250,000 or the transfer of the property's title to the estate.
Another more recent thing along these lines came in February 2025 – according to CBS Sports, the Nevada probate judge approved a plan to auction some of OJ’s most valuable personal property, including his Heisman Trophy, an SUV, and golf clubs, his prison collection of … magazines (if you know, you know), among a lot of other things. According to a TMZ article, the auction to sell some of this property could be as soon as March 2025 – when this episode will air. So maybe between now, when I’m recording in mid-February, and when this episode releases, in mid-March, we’ll have a better update – or heck, maybe the auction will be soon. Though, I mention all of this because the proceeds from this sale will enter his estate and could very well be used to pay some of the balance of the damages amount. They expect things to be sold for millions. The TMZ article mentions that the kids of OJ could object to the estate sale, but as of right now, they have not. So we will have to see!
Among all this craziness, back in or around May 2024, it was revealed that OJ’s estate faces like a $572,402.69 tax lien from the state of California, which could complicate efforts to settle the judgment owed to the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Shortly after this came out, Malcolm, the Executor, did express some concern that this unforeseen tax debt might hinder plans to compensate the families of Nicole and Ron. It’ll be really interesting to see how this all plays out because in estates, most states, if not all, have a pecking order as to what claims will get paid first, second, third, etc. So, it’s possible the taxes take a higher priority than the claim to help fulfill what is owned to Nicole and Ron’s families. From what I can tell, my educated guess is that there is not going through the estate to fully address the tax lien and the claim for the wrongful death damages (from the civil suit) – since so many of OJ’s assets ARE protected and what is NOT protected (like his personal property that will be going up for sale through the estate auction) will very likely not yield enough to address everything. Sadly. Very sad.
Alrighty, let’s wrap this episode up, shall we? Next week, we’re back to the “celebrity estate planning” type of episode – so, for this episode, I’m going to go through not just one, but maybe a few race car drivers’ who have passed away and what happened estate-wise following their deaths. Someone in my office wanted me to do a race-themed episode, so she can plug it as we rapidly approach Indy 500 and May in Indianapolis, so this is for her – but also for Legal Tea Listeners as well! Alrighty, Legal Tea Listeners, tune in for that and talk to you then!
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