O.J. Simpson Suspected in Armed Robbery

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

MsMofoGone

Blue Crack Addict
Joined
Feb 17, 2005
Messages
26,742
Location
Where is not important...
Simpson Named Suspect in Armed Robbery
By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY and LINDA DEUTSCH, Associated Press Writers
2 hours ago


LAS VEGAS - O.J. Simpson says he only went into a casino hotel room to retrieve memorabilia that he felt was stolen from him. But police are investigating it as an armed robbery and named the fallen football star as a suspect Friday in yet another surprising chapter to his legal saga.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Simpson insisted there were no guns involved and he only went to the room at the Palace Station casino to retrieve stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with J. Edgar Hoover.

"It's stolen stuff that's mine. Nobody was roughed up," Simpson told the AP.

Las Vegas Metro Police Capt. James Dillon said the confrontation was reported as an armed robbery involving guns. But he said no weapons had been recovered and stressed that the investigation was in its "infancy."

Simpson was questioned by police immediately after the incident late Thursday 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."

Simpson, who was in Las Vegas for a friend's wedding, 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 they took the collectibles.

Simpson said he wasn't sure where the items were taken.

Dillon said some of the items had been recovered. He did not specify which collectibles were located.

A message left for Riccio was not immediately returned.

Police spokesman Jose Montoya said when officers talked to Simpson, he "made the comment that he believed the memorabilia was his. We're getting conflicting stories from the two sides."

One of the collectors 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's lawsuit.

"I'm OK. I'm shaken up," Beardsley told the AP by phone, but wouldn't comment further, citing the police investigation.

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 the 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, described him as a former close friend and said he couldn't explain the behavior.

"O.J.'s in enough trouble. For him to come and do this kind of thing, I don't know what's wrong with O.J. This is stupidity."

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 Las Vegas district attorney's office will decide whether to pursue charges in the casino case.

The Heisman Trophy winner, ex-NFL star and actor lives near Miami and has been a tabloid staple since his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman were killed in 1994. Simpson was acquitted of murder charges, but a jury later held him liable for the killings in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Simpson has had to auction off his sports collectibles, including his Heisman Trophy, to pay some of the $33.5 million judgment awarded in the civil trial.

On Thursday, the Goldman family published a book about the killings that Simpson had written under the title, "If I Did It," about how he would have committed the crime had he actually done it. After a deal for Simpson to publish it fell through, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family, who retitled it "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," Fred Goldman told the AP. "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 on Tuesday to get whatever items Simpson took in Las Vegas.

The Palace Station, an aging property just west of the Las Vegas Strip, is one of several Station Casinos-owned resorts that cater to locals. The 1,000-room hotel-casino, with a 21-story tower and adjacent buildings, opened in 1976.

A company spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.
 
"O.J.'s in enough trouble. For him to come and do this kind of thing,
I don't know what's wrong with O.J. This is stupidity."

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.

And ... here we go again. :tsk:
 
U2MaNaIcWeIdO said:
OJ's been doing stupid things since he came up with the bright idea to write a "how-to" book on the murders :rolleyes:

Is that when he started doing stupid things? :wink:
 
Originally posted by U2MaNaIcWeIdO
OJ's been doing stupid things since he came up with the bright idea to write a "how-to" book on the murders :rolleyes:

Didn't he end up penniless ?? :scratch:

He doesn't care what is said in that book ... it seems more like a plot to try to make some money. :sick:
 
Last edited:
^ But he doesn't get the money though, it's blood money for the Goldman family.
 
Conan O'Brien made a great joke last night that OJ was worried this would tarnish his image as a double murderer.
 
And the plot thickens ... now this ?? :eek:


Simpson Accuser Now 'On O.J.'s Side'
By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY and LINDA DEUTSCH, Associated Press Writers
48 minutes ago


LAS VEGAS - A sports memorabilia collector who accused O.J. Simpson of armed robbery said Saturday that he was "on O.J.'s side" and wants the case dropped.

"I want this thing to go away. I have health problems," said Alfred Beardsley, the collector who told police on Thursday that Simpson and several other men stormed a Las Vegas hotel room and stole memorabilia at gunpoint.

Beardsley, of Burbank, Calif., told The Associated Press he is not interested in pursuing the case.

"I have no desire to fly back and forth to Las Vegas to testify," he said. "How are they going to have a witness who's on O.J.'s side?"

Beardsley said he called police only because the items were valuable and if he had not reported them as stolen he would be "held accountable for all the stuff." Beardsley said Friday that Simpson had called him to apologize.

Lt. Clint Nichols said later Saturday that Beardsley had not formally withdrawn his complaint and that another collector in the room, Bruce Fromong, had not indicated that he wants to drop the complaint.

Earlier, Las Vegas police said they were questioning one of the three or four men who were thought to have accompanied Simpson to the hotel room. No arrests had been made and police were still trying to determine what took place before Simpson left the room with memorabilia he says was stolen from him, Nichols said. Police think a weapon was involved and want to review hotel surveillance tapes.

Simpson told The Associated Press on Saturday that he did he did not even consider calling the police to help reclaim personal items he believed were stolen from him, because he has found the police unresponsive when he needed help ever since his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, were killed in 1994.

"The police, since my trouble, have not worked out for me," he said, noting that whenever he has called the police "It just becomes a story about O.J."

"I'm at the point where I don't rely on the police and this is not a police issue anyway," he said, expressing hope that it will soon be resolved.

Simpson, 60, said he was just trying to retrieve memorabilia, particularly photos of his wife and children. There were no guns and no break-in, he said.

As police try to determine what happened in the hotel room, they must unravel the contorted relationships between the erstwhile athlete and a cadre of collectors that has profited from his infamy since the slayings of his ex-wife and Goldman. He was acquitted of murder in 1995, but was found liable for their deaths in a civil case.

Fromong considered Simpson a close friend. Beardsley had collected Simpson items for years.

On Saturday, Simpson declared: "None of these guys are friends of mine."

Attempts by the AP to reach Fromong on Saturday were unsuccessful.

Simpson, who lives in Miami, said he expected to find the stolen items when he went to an arranged meeting Thursday.

The man who arranged the meeting, according to Simpson, was another man who makes a living on the fringes of the celebrity.

Thomas Riccio, a well-known memorabilia dealer, made headlines when his auction house, Corona, Calif.-based Universal Rarities, handled the eBay auction of Anna Nicole Smith's handwritten diaries.

Simpson said Riccio called him several weeks ago to inform him that people "have a lot of your stuff and they don't want anyone to know they are selling it," Simpson said.

Along with the personal photos, Simpson expected to find one item in particular: the suit he was wearing when he was acquitted of murder.

It's not clear where they got the suit, but Beardsley, a former real estate agent and longtime Simpson collector, and Fromong had been trying to sell it for several months. They'd recently tried eBay and the celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com.

Simpson said Beardsley and Fromong were attempting to profit off personal items including the wedding video from his first marriage.

In an interview with TMZ.com, Beardsley noted that during the alleged robbery in the hotel room Simpson appeared surprised the pair were the ones selling the items.

"Simpson was saying that 'I liked you, I thought you were a good guy,'" Beardsley said.

Simpson accused Mike Gilbert, a one-time associate, of stealing the items from him. He said he believes Gilbert stole items from a storage locker once held in Simpson's mother's name.

Attempts to reach Gilbert by phone were unsuccessful.

As Simpson's licensing agent in the late 1990s, Gilbert admitted snatching Simpson's Heisman Trophy and other items from his client's Brentwood home as payment for money he said was owed to him. He later turned the items over to authorities, save the trophy's nameplate.

Gilbert swore he'd go to jail before turning the nameplate over to the Goldman family, which was trying to collect on the $33.5 million civil judgment it won against Simpson. Gilbert later surrendered it under court order.

As questions swirled around the curious cast of characters and their mysterious meeting, media scrutiny and public interest that has dogged the fallen athlete was in full swing.

By Saturday afternoon, Simpson's new book, "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer," was the top seller on Amazon.com.

None of the men will profit from the book's sales. After a deal for Simpson to publish it fell through, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family.
 
Ahh, OJ and his bad karma are at it again.

Which begs the question:

What does Slice soda and the Las Vegas police department have in common?

We got the Juice!
 
MrPryck2U said:
Ahh, OJ and his bad karma are at it again.

Which begs the question:

What does Slice soda and the Las Vegas police department have in common?

We got the Juice!

fozzy-bear-30362.jpg
 
His defense will be that he broke his ring finger, and he was wearing his wedding band (because he loves his wife that he did not murder) on his index finger that night. Thus, he couldn't have fit his finger on the trigger in order to hold the gun.

If the finger don't fit, you must acquit.
 
U2MaNaIcWeIdO said:


I bypassed the murder trials cause I was SICK of the coverage. :yuck:

In my high school cj class the teacher made us watch the trial everyday and take notes on it :crack: Then we were given quizzes at the end of the week. Now THAT really made me sorry I had ever heard of this killer!
 
BonosBaby12 said:


In my high school cj class the teacher made us watch the trial everyday and take notes on it :crack: Then we were given quizzes at the end of the week. Now THAT really made me sorry I had ever heard of this killer!

For me...it was me coming home to see my mom glued to CNN or something like that.

I think I was one white person in America that was glad he got out....cause I was SICK of the coverage (like I said before) :yuck:
 
Nice to see everyone so open to the possibility that OJ might not be guilty(of the murder, that is), especially since his guilt was never proven.
 
Oh come on. This is America. If you think OJ is innocent, you're branded a pinko commie. Then they send you to the moon to live.
 
Here's an extended version. :up:



O.J. Simpson Ordered Held Without Bail
By RYAN NAKASHIMA, Associated Press Writer
2 hours ago


LAS VEGAS (AP) _ Police arrested O.J. Simpson on Sunday, saying he was part of an armed group who burst into a Las Vegas hotel room and snatched memorabilia that documented his own sports career, long ago eclipsed by scandal.

The arrest starts a new legal odyssey for the fallen football star who more than a decade ago was acquitted of the slayings of his ex-wife and a friend, and opens the possibility he could spend decades behind bars.

Simpson was taken away from The Palms casino-hotel by plainclothes officers a day after the arrest of a golfing buddy who police say accompanied him with a gun in the Thursday night holdup. Handcuffed and wearing a golf shirt and jeans, Simpson was placed in an SUV.

"He was very cooperative, there were no issues," Capt. James Dillon said.

Simpson was to be booked on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit burglary and burglary with a firearm, police said. The district attorney, meanwhile, said he expected Simpson to ultimately be charged with seven felonies and one gross misdemeanor.

If convicted of the booking charges, Simpson would face up to 30 years in state prison on each robbery count alone.

"He is facing a lot of time," said Clark County District Attorney David Roger.

Simpson, 60, has said he and other people were retrieving items that belonged to him. Simpson has said there were no guns involved and that he went to the room at the casino only to get stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with J. Edgar Hoover.

Simpson told The Associated Press on Saturday that he did not call the police to help reclaim the items because he has found the police unresponsive to him ever since his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, were killed in 1994.

"The police, since my trouble, have not worked out for me," he said, noting that whenever he has called the police "It just becomes a story about O.J."

Police did not allege that Simpson personally carried a weapon in the incident.

"We don't have any information to lead us to believe he was armed even based on those charges," said police Lt. Clint Nichols.

Police said they seized two firearms involved in the robbery along with sports memorabilia, mostly signed by Simpson. They also said they recovered collectible baseballs and Joe Montana cleats at private residences early Sunday on three search warrants. But "whether the property belonged to Mr. Simpson is a matter of debate," Nichols said.

Walter Alexander, 46, of Mesa, Ariz., was arrested Saturday night on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary with a deadly weapon. Alexander, who was described as one of Simpson's golfing buddies, was released without bail Saturday night.

"Walter was one of the two subjects who had a gun," Capt. James Dillon said.

Robert Dennis Rentzer, a Los Angeles lawyer representing Alexander, said he was able to arrange his client's release from custody, but wasn't familiar with the allegations.

Police also are seeking four men: Clarence Stewart, Michael McClinton, Tom Scotty and another man who was not identified. Authorities did not provide ages or hometowns for any of the men.

Simpson, a Heisman Trophy winner, ex-NFL star and actor, lives near Miami and has been a tabloid staple since his ex-wife and Goldman were killed. Simpson was acquitted of murder charges, but a jury later held him liable for the killings in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Goldman's father, Ron Goldman, welcomed the possibility that Simpson could go to prison.

"He's believed for years, decades, that he's entitled to do anything he wants, and the legal system and society has basically agreed with him," Goldman said. "This time, hopefully, he'll get what he deserves. He'll get jail time."

Police said Sunday that Simpson asked to speak with his lawyer before proceeding with an interview, although he spoke several times with investigators before his arrest. Simpson's lawyer, Yale Galanter, did not immediately return calls for comment after the arrest.

Simpson said auction house owner Tom Riccio called him several weeks ago to say some collectors were selling some of his items. Riccio set up a meeting with collectors under the guise that he had a private collector interested in buying Simpson's items.

Simpson said he was accompanied by several men he met at a wedding cocktail party, and they took the collectibles.

Alfred Beardsley, one of the sports memorabilia collectors who was in the hotel room, has said he wants the case dropped and that he's "on O.J.'s side."

Simpson's arrest came just days after the Goldman family published a book that Simpson had written under the title, "If I Did It" about how he would have committed the killings of his ex-wife and Goldman had he actually done it.

After a deal for Simpson to publish it fell through, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family, who retitled it "If I Did It: The Confessions of the Killer." During the weekend, the book was the hottest seller in the country, hitting No. 1 on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.
 
Back
Top Bottom