Simpson's Income: $25,000 A Month -- Millions In Pension May Be Protected, Goldman Lawyers Say
SANTA MONICA, Calif. - O.J. Simpson has been drawing $25,000 a month from his profit-sharing pension account and could continue doing so for the rest of his life without turning a penny of it over to satisfy the $33.5 million civil judgment against him, lawyers said yesterday.
Attorneys involved in the efforts to find and seize Simpson's assets spent yesterday, the third anniversary of the slayings of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, cross-examining Simpson's longtime attorney and business manager Skip Taft, the first person to give an accounting of Simpson's financial picture.
Nicole Simpson and Goldman were killed outside her Brentwood condominium the night of June 12, 1994. O.J. Simpson was charged with murder in the slayings but acquitted in criminal court. He was tried again in civil court and found liable for $33.5 million in damages for their deaths. He denies killing them.
Testifying behind closed doors yesterday, Taft said O.J. Simpson has in excess of $3.2 million in his largest trust account, attorneys for the Goldman family said. In other trust accounts, Simpson has more than $1 million, the Goldman lawyers said.
Ronald Slates, a debtor/creditor attorney representing Simpson, said that after taxes, Simpson actually gets closer to $16,000 monthly from his pension fund.
But because state law shields pension accounts from creditors, Simpson might not have to turn any of that money over to the Goldman and Brown families, lawyers on both sides said.
"He can do almost anything," said Goldman attorney Peter Csato. "He can use it for living expenses, he can buy anything he wants for himself."
In fact, the only money that might eventually go to the two families are proceeds that will come from a sale of possessions seized from Simpson's estate. Those items - some of which Simpson's legal team is arguing are also exempt - have been appraised at between $500,000 and $700,000, Goldman lawyers said.
Two separate hearings over the next two weeks will determine what possessions and pension funds Simpson is entitled to keep.
Simpson's $300,000-a-year income is from his enterprise Orenthal Productions. Goldman's attorneys dismissed Simpson's National Football League pension, which would amount to a few thousand dollars a month, as insignificant.
While his attorneys argued in court, Simpson did nothing special to mark the third anniversary of his ex-wife's slaying.
"We don't have any anniversary," Simpson said from his home. "We don't celebrate death in this house. It's impossible not to be aware of it but we don't go out of our way to mark it.
"I think about her every day," Simpson said. "Today is no different than any day. Today is not a day I want to celebrate. It was the worst day of my life."
Also yesterday, the State Bar of California publicly reproved Barry Scheck and Carl Douglas, two of the defense attorneys in the Simpson criminal trial, and advised Robert Tourtelot, a lawyer for witness Mark Fuhrman, that Tourtelot's conduct potentially violated State Bar rules.
Scheck was punished for, in effect, participating as an attorney in the trial without a valid license to practice law in California, according to the bar. Douglas was punished for abusing subpoena powers.
Tourtelot was advised that his public condemnation of racist remarks by Fuhrman came close to violating state-bar rules prohibiting a lawyer from taking any public position that might prove detrimental to a client.
Material from The Associated Press is included in this story.