LAS VEGAS– OJ Simpson’s last serious conversation with his old lawyer came just before Easter, at the country club house Simpson rented southwest of the Las Vegas Strip.
“He was awake, alert and shivering,” attorney Malcom LaVergne recalled Tuesday. ‘He’s lying on the couch… drinking a beer and watching TV. And so that was the last time we had any effective back-and-forth conversations. He’s usually the one who keeps me up to date on the news…so we were just catching up on the news at the time.”
About a week later, on April 5, a doctor said Simpson was “in transition,” as LaVergne described it. The last time LaVergne visited, last week, Simpson only had the strength to ask for water, choosing to watch a TV golf tournament instead. of a tennis match.
“Of course he chose golf,” LaVergne told The Associated Press in an interview. “He was an absolute golf fanatic.”
Simpson died on April 10 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. He was 76.
A post the next day from Simpson’s family on X, formerly Twitter, said Simpson “succumbed to his battle with cancer” while “surrounded by his children and grandchildren.” However, LaVergne said Tuesday that only one person was with Simpson when he died, identified by the attorney only as “a close family member.” He refused to say who it was.
“You have to remember that their whole lives they shared OJ with the world,” the attorney said of Simpson’s surviving adult children from his first marriage — Arnelle Simpson, now 55, and Jason Simpson, 53 — and the children Simpson had with ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson before she was murdered in 1994: Sydney Simpson, 38, and Justin Simpson, 35. The family’s social media post asked for “privacy and grace” “during this time of transition.”
“First they shared good OJ. But he was still famous,” LaVergne said. “And then, in 1994, they had to share some kind of bad OJ with the world. But in the end, these children simply lost a father. And they have the added burden of being one of the most famous people on the planet, polarizing and surrounded by controversy.”
LaVergne, who is managing Simpson’s estate, shared details of his final encounters with the former hero, movie actor, sportscaster, television pitchman and murder defendant he has represented since 2009.
He dismissed a question about a possible deathbed confession from Simpson as an attempt to “move from gloom to sensationalism and entertainment.” head during his 11 years as a running back in the NFL.
“Mr. Simpson, from what I understand, had expressed his wishes to his children,” LaVergne said. “And so they’re going to act on those wishes.”
Simpson wanted to be cremated, the attorney said, and — pending a decision from his family — there was no immediate plan for a public memorial.
“There have been only tentative discussions about a celebration of life (or) ceremony,” LaVergne said.
The attorney filed Simpson’s last will and testament in Nevada state court two days after his death, naming Simpson’s four children as the sole beneficiaries of his estate. He said details of a family trust have yet to be filed.
The lawyer declined to place value on the estate, but said Simpson did not own a home in the states where he had lived – including Nevada, California and Florida. He said the bills were still being tallied.
Simpson was famously acquitted of criminal charges alleging he stabbed his ex-wife and her boyfriend, Ronald Goldman, to death in Los Angeles in 1994. This 1996 California proceeding became known as the “trial of the century.” Simpson was found liable for the deaths by a California civil court jury in 1997.
In Las Vegas, Simpson went to prison for nine years in 2008 after being found guilty of armed robbery during a 2007 encounter at a casino hotel with two collectibles dealers.
Since his release from prison in October 2017, he has led a golf and country club lifestyle, sometimes offering social media posts about sports and golf. His last post was on February 11: He wore a San Francisco 49ers jersey and predicted his old team would beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII. The Chiefs won.
LaVergne acknowledged that Simpson died without paying the families of Simpson’s murdered ex-wife and Goldman most of a $33.5 million judgment awarded to them in the 1997 civil liability case.
Attorney David Cook, who represents the Goldman family, said Tuesday that he believed the judgment owed today, including unpaid interest, is more than $114 million.
LaVergne said last week that the Goldmans wouldn’t get a dime of Simpson’s assets, then backtracked. He said Tuesday he believed the amount owed was more than $200 million. He said Simpson’s assets won’t amount to that.
“They will be invited to look at my homework,” he said of the Goldman and Brown families. “I want to show them what I have, with the caveat that if they believe there’s something different… they’re going to have to use their own lawyers and their own resources to try to chase that pot of gold. ”
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Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, NM, contributed to this report.