Everyone can fervently hope that life remains as simple for the two children as that story implies. Yet the adjustments facing them are almost too seismic to comprehend, and it’s almost impossible to imagine the future life of O. J. Simpson and his kids as being so placid and smooth. Simpson, the once jet-setting owner of luxury houses, now likely faces a more austere lifestyle beset by lawyers trailing him for money. The fancy Riviera Country Club, where O.J. once occupied center stage in high-stakes golf and gin-rummy games, is a fond memory. These days, and for days to come, he will haunt the public golf links, paying $17 a round and picking up games with strangers. Some friends think the former football star, pitchman and actor will move out of California, both to get out of the glare and to cut his expenses. He’s tried to ingratiate himself into the black community, but his list of friends remains small, the civil verdict only deepening his pariah status.
But whether he flees or stays, he can’t outrun the inexorable maturing of his children. Will it be 5 years, or 10, or 20, before they ask him what really happened that night outside their mother’s house? When they ask him if he was really innocent, as he insists, or, as much of the nation now believes, merely the once rich and famous celebrity who spent his fortune on a great team of lawyers to help him beat the murder rap? A hard question to ask, an unimaginable question to have to answer.
That’s the future, and for the moment the children may face another bout of custody questions. Lou and Juditha Brown, Nicole’s parents, may try to gain custody of the two kids in light of the civil verdict. They relinquished control of the children in December when Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock ruled that Simpson, the biological father, was a good dad and had the legal right to raise the two. A few days before Christmas, the kids moved from the Browns’ house in Orange County, where they had resided since the murders, to Simpson’s Brentwood estate.
In Simpson’s view, at least, the kids are flourishing, attending after-school activities and making new friends. According to sources, he told Stock last month that he helps Sydney with her homework and bought her a new laptop computer. Out of school, he said, Sydney takes drama lessons (with sister Arnelle) and dance classes. Justin likes photography, making home movies, and sports, especially basketball. In fact, Simpson recently arranged to have Justin serve as ball boy for the basketball team at the University of Southern California, Simpson’s alma mater, for a couple of games.
The Browns’ chances of getting the children back, in fact, remain small. For one thing, California law strongly favors the biological parent–and the verdict in the civil suit probably isn’t enough to dislodge that preference. As before, the critical issue for the Browns, under state law, would be to show ““clear and convincing’’ evidence that Simpson is detrimental to his children. And as odd as it strikes many people, the wrongful-death finding, with its lesser burden of proof, is not likely to have much relevance.
The Browns themselves know how difficult the legal battle is. Last summer, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Browns had decided to drop the custody fight and return the children to Simpson. According to John Kelly, their civil lawyer, Lou called and said: ““We’re going to give the kids back. We don’t have a chance.''
““Have you lost your minds?’’ Kelly said he responded. ““How can you give the kids back to a killer? And besides, what will the world think if you just hand the kids back without a fight?’’ The Browns eventually changed their minds and got a new custody lawyer, Natasha Roit of Los Angeles.
But if the Browns do try again, they face another huge obstacle in getting the kids back–and that’s their own conduct. The Browns have been in an impossible situation: trying to raise their grandchildren while believing their father murdered their mother. But during last year’s battle over the guardianship, sources told NEWSWEEK, the Browns were criticized for their hostility toward Simpson and for selling Nicole’s belongings and photos to tabloid media.
The biggest beneficiary of the sales was Lou Brown, who has said he received $162,500 to narrate Nicole and O.J.’s wedding video for the syndicated TV show ““A Current Affair.’’ He also said he received $100,000 for the sale of Nicole’s diary to the National Enquirer. He has said it was his to sell because he found the diary in Nicole’s condo in an envelope addressed to him.
Nicole’s sister Dominique also benefited. She has said that she sold a series of pictures to the National Enquirer for $32,000. One of the pictures was of a topless Nicole in Mexico. She also helped set up a picture by alerting an Enquirer friend when Justin was placing flowers on his mother’s grave. She has explained that she needed the money in the event Sydney ever came to live with her.
A child psychiatrist, say sources, depicted the Browns as so filled with grief and hostility toward Simpson that it was damaging the children. The expert said the Browns refused to discuss their father with the kids and made them use the last name Brown instead of Simpson. They wouldn’t allow Simpson to attend Justin’s first communion. And they wouldn’t allow Simpson to enter their home. Two weeks ago Stock again criticized the Browns for ““unabated and unrestrained public expression of ill feelings toward the father.''
Her December ruling, while giving the kids to Simpson, allowed reasonable visitation rights for the Browns, including periodic weekend visits. Indeed, mental-health experts had testified that the two children should spend time with their grandparents. But that was cold comfort to Juditha Brown. Outraged, she sent a typewritten note to the judge on Christmas Day, entitled ““mother to mother conversation.’’ She wrote how the murderer left the front door wide open and ““two little children sleeping with the possibility of finding their mother dead in her blood.’’ She ended: ““This murderer was OJ Simpson, may God help me, my ex-son-in-law, to whom you just returned two beautiful, loving children. Yours was a Christmas present I will never forget.''
Last week the Browns’ lawyer, Natasha Roit, denied that her clients had harmed the children. ““Absolutely not–not technically, not actually and not legally or ethically. I don’t think that anything the Browns have done at any point to date has had a negative impact on the children whatsoever.’’ She also lashed out at a system that allows a person found liable for murder to fare so well. ““We put the individual rights of a biological father who is now found to be responsible for two gruesome murders over the rights of two small children.’’ Stock, while well regarded, is under attack. Some feminists are pushing for a recall of the judge, who last week suffered another embarrassment: the disclosure of a murder-suicide by a mother to whom the judge had awarded joint custody of two kids, 9 and 7.
For the foreseeable future, however, Simpson seems assured of keeping custody of his children. Where will they live? And how well? The answers depend in part on what punitive damages, if any, the jury elects to award to the children and the Brown family. Last week’s $8.5 million compensatory award will go only to the Goldman family because of a legal technicality. Regardless, Simpson would be left assets that can’t be touched and which many Americans wouldn’t mind having. He has set up pension funds through his own companies that are worth $4.1 million. Under federal law the plaintiffs can’t seek that money. Simpson can’t, either, until he’s 55, but he can borrow against it for modest living expenses (chart).
It’s possible he may not even have to sell his estate, now valued at $3.7 million. In the last two years, Simpson has drained the equity out of the house by mortgaging it to the hilt. And under state law that maneuvering may allow him to keep living there. If Simpson has less than $75,000 in equity in the house, says David Stern, a bankruptcy lawyer, California law says creditors like the Goldmans and Browns can’t seize the property.
That still leaves a problematic question for Simpson: what does he do to make money now? He long ago lost commercial endorsements and sportscasting work. Don’t cry for Simpson, the plaintiffs argued last week, calling expert witnesses who insisted that Simpson’s notoriety could earn him $3 million a year for many years to come. But the defense found the projections laughable. ““Show me the money,’’ bellowed Skip Taft.
The potential exists that Simpson will be strapped for money but the kids won’t. That’s because any punitive damages awarded to the children will go to a trust fund that Simpson can’t touch except for extraordinary medical emergencies. The children can get the money when they come of age.
Simpson could delay the day of reckoning by filing an appeal move. Once the judge certifies the award, the plaintiffs can move to seize Simpson’s assets almost immediately. If Simpson decides to appeal he would have to post a bond equal to 150 percent of the judgment. He apparently doesn’t have that kind of money, though a wealthy friend might. Can he win an appeal? Many experts think he has ample grounds to try–like the admission of the lie-detector test–but few think an appellate judge has a taste for Simpson III. ““No judge who has any judicial ambition will ever rule in favor of O. J. Simpson,’’ said Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, and former Dream Team member.
As Simpson huddles with his lawyers on these issues, his life, already narrowed considerably, promises to get even more so. The Rockingham estate has become both a refuge and a gilded prison for him. Friends say if he’s not playing golf, or horsing around with his kids, he watches highlight reels from his football glory days. ““The O. J. Simpson of June 12, 1994, is gone,’’ says lawyer Leo Terrell, his staunchest public defender. ““The outgoing personality the public knew, that’s gone.''
Aided by his 27-year-old daughter Arnelle, Simpson has tried to re-enter black Los Angeles. She has escorted him to services at black churches and made him a semiregular at post-church brunches at the Boulevard Cafe, a popular soul-food eatery. ““This place is a community hub and he needs that exposure,’’ says owner Frank Holoman. But whether Simpson will even continue that effort in Los Angeles is unclear. His sister Shirley Baker wants him to move, according to Terrell, ““because it’s the only way she feels he’ll get on with his and the children’s lives.’’ Other friends think he should go perhaps to Florida or New York. Would that make him any less visible? It’s hard to imagine. But it’s clear more than ever that the man who built his fame and fortune on running won’t be slowing down any time soon.
In this NEWSWEEK Poll, 82% of blacks polled say Simpson should keep custody of his children, given the jury’s decision; 44% of whites say he should keep custody 70% of those polled think Simpson will not be able to resume his role as a public figure; all things being equal, 53% would never buy a product he endorsed
