Police insist O.J. Simpson’s treatment is fair

Audiotape allegedly details incident
An apparent audiotape of O.J. Simpson’s standoff with men he accused of stealing his memorabilia begins with the former NFL star demanding, “Don’t let nobody out of here.”

“Think you can steal my s--- and sell it?” the voice identified as Simpson’s said, in a recording released by celebrity news Web site TMZ.com.

A big hurdle for prosecutors will also be determining who owned the memorabilia — everything from cleats worn by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, to autographed baseballs, and Simpson’s Hall of Fame certificate.

Bruce Fromong, one of the sports memorabilia dealers who said he was robbed, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that the items did not belong to Simpson.

“If you’re asking did they once belong to him, yes, they did,” Fromong said. “But these were things that belonged to him a long time ago.”

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.

Goldman's father reacts
David Cook, an attorney for Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, said he intended to file requests in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday to obtain ownership of the seized sports memorabilia for sale to satisfy the judgment.

CNBC video Is O.J.’s stuff worth anything? Sept. 17: Despite media interest in his self-described “sting,” collectors say there may not actually be that much interest in his collectibles. “On the Money’s” Darren Rovell reports. CNBC

“We’re going to presume that the bulk of the stuff is probably in police custody,” Cook said Monday by telephone from San Francisco. He said other key items were a gold Rolex watch and the suit that Simpson wore on the day he was acquitted.

“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.”

Thomas Mesereau Jr., the defense attorney who represented Michael Jackson in a high-profile trial two years ago, said of the Simpson arrest: “This is the kind of case that will test how fair and professional our legal system is. When you have such a groundswell of dislike for someone, you have to make sure they are treated like anyone else.”

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