OJ Simpson to AP: No Guns Involved
Updated: Former football superstar O.J. Simpson is considered a suspect in a possible armed robbery involving sports memorabilia taken from a hotel room in a Las Vegas casino, according to news reports.
But Simpson, in an interview today, insists that no crime occurred and says there were no guns involved, the Associated Press says in a recently filed article. Simpson reportedly says he went to a room at the Palace Station, an aging casino west of the Las Vegas Strip, to retrieve stolen memorabilia including his Hall of Fame certificate and a photograph of him and J. Edgar Hoover.
“It’s stolen stuff that’s mine. Nobody was roughed up,” Simpson told the news agency.
Simpson is a suspect in what the alleged victim reported as an armed robbery last night, but Las Vegas police haven’t yet established that any weapons were used or even that a crime occurred, according to the AP and CNN.
“We haven’t arrested him or anything else; the investigation is very preliminary right now,” Sgt. John Loretto of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told CNN earlier today.
“He is not in custody. He is cooperating with the investigation and is meeting with robbery detectives at this time,” Capt. James Dillon later told reporters.
Jose Montoya, a police spokesman, told the AP earlier today that “associates” of the Heisman Trophy winner, ex-National Football League superstar, actor and acquitted murder defendant also were questioned in the case.
Simpson was found not guilty in 1995 of charges that he had murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a male companion, Ron Goldman. However, he was subsequently found liable in 1997 for damages in a civil wrongful death trial.
He was ordered to pay $38 million to the Goldman family and $24 million to Brown’s family, the New York Times reports. But so far, according to David J. Cook, a lawyer for Goldman’s family, his clients have received less than $10,000.
Thus, if the memorabilia at issue in Las Vegas belongs to Simpson, “it’s ours,” says Cook, who plans to seek a Las Vegas court order next week to seize the property.
(Updated at 5:52 p.m., CDT, and 9:59 p.m., CDT.)
