Bad Feelings Between Browns, Goldmans Emerge At Hearing O.J. Attorneys Admit Effort To Favor Browns As Creditors

A rift between survivors of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman was exposed Monday at a hearing where O.J. Simpson lost a bid to keep thousands of dollars worth of property from creditors.

A Goldman attorney accused lawyers for Simpson and for the Brown family of conspiring to gain an unfair advantage. And the judge responded to lengthy bickering by noting an “unseemly competition” between the parties.

“I’m troubled by that,” said Superior Court Judge Irving Shimer.

The judge is deciding what property Simpson can withhold from the $33.5 million civil judgment won by Nicole Brown Simpson’s estate and Goldman’s family in their wrongful death case.

He denied exemption for $170,000 worth of items, including a $15,000 life-size bronze sculpture of Simpson and a $5,700 painting. The biggest debate centered on Simpson’s 51 golf clubs. The judge turned down a request to let Simpson pick out a set to keep.

The hearing left unknown the whereabouts of Simpson’s Heisman Trophy, awarded to him in 1968 as college football’s top player. His attorney, Ronald P. Slates, characterized reports of the trophy being located as rumors and said he hadn’t “the foggiest idea” of how they began.

Simpson has claimed he doesn’t know where the trophy is, saying last month he assumed it was in a trust set up for his two children with Nicole Brown Simpson.

Goldman family attorney Daniel Petrocelli fumed outside court, accusing the Brown and Simpson lawyers of “working very closely together and colluding together to do everything they can to frustrate my client’s ability to enforce this judgment.”

Ira M. Friedman, representing Nicole Brown Simpson’s father Louis Brown, executor of her estate, responded bluntly.

“So? You can prefer one creditor over another,” Friedman said.

Simpson’s attorney said the law allows Simpson to prefer the Browns.

“We’re concerned for the needs of the children. We would like them to grow up with some of these items,” Slates said outside court.

He said the Browns “have been much more cooperative” and “much more humane,” while the Goldmans have tried to take “his last morsel.”

The judge rejected a proposal from Simpson’s side that most of his claimed exemptions be dropped if the Browns got priority over the Goldmans.

“I have not ruled that the Browns have achieved any kind of priority,” Shimer told the attorneys.

Petrocelli called Simpson’s offer a “gimmick … to move the items to their favored creditor.”

The judge did allow Simpson to pick out $6,000 worth of artwork named in a specific property group.

Among items the judge refused to exempt were two lamps valued at $24,000 and $18,870.

Items must be “ordinary and necessary” to a household to be exempt, Goldman attorney Gary Caris said.

Simpson was acquitted on criminal charges in the slayings of his ex-wife and Goldman.