Today’s required reading.

Remember Fred Goldman, Ron’s dad? He certainly won’t let O.J. Simpson forget about him. A great WashPost story about the case that won’t go away. Fascinating forensic-accounting detail:

Lawyers (Goldman has) hired simply cannot find Simpson’s money — though tax returns they obtained in 2002 and 2003 show he was making nearly $400,000 per year. His pro football and acting pensions are protected from seizure. He lives on a nice street in Miami, he takes his children on vacations to the Bahamas, in large part, Goldman’s attorneys say, by a complicated scheme of refinancing loans on his home, using that money for living expenses, while having the payments back to the mortgage company protected by law.

Worth your time.

Posted at 11:38 am in Current events |
 

23 responses to “Today’s required reading.”

  1. brian stouder said on September 13, 2007 at 1:35 pm

    this passage struck me; this is just how I would imagine Arizona to be

    The next morning, in the pre-dawn glow, Venus is brilliant in the sky. There are no clouds. The mountains are not the graceless brown of midday, when the heat and the dust are choking. At this hour, the hills are a sawtooth ridge against the blackness. Fingers of sunlight filter across the sky. It is peaceful — not the fried-into-torpor reality of early afternoon — but something soft, cool and mystic, calm and beautiful.

    Fred Goldman awakes and leaves at this time of day, flying east, away from his son’s grave, to the television klieg lights and the radio microphones and the shouts and the controversy, an aging man seeking justice or peace or vengeance, or maybe some nameless thing that might be found in between.

    Anyway, speaking of ‘forensic-accounting’, Hillary Clinton should thank her lucky stars – or brilliant Venus – that the Hsu fellow didn’t die aboard that Amtrack train. Good Christ – if his suicide had succeeded we’d never ever hear the end of looney-bin conspiracy theories and so forth, about how you cross a Clinton and then die.

    But on the other hand, being an Obama guy, maybe that wouldn’t have been all bad!

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  2. Ralph Hitchens said on September 13, 2007 at 2:51 pm

    We can all sympathize with a man who is certain (as are most people, I imagine) that his son was brutally murdered by Mr. Simpson and feels that justice was not served with the latter’s acquittal. But I have trouble understanding why, after having been acquitted in a criminal trial, Mr. Simpson was forced to undergo a retrial in civil court that, in effect, found him guilty of the same crime. Whatever small degree of satisfaction we may feel about Simpson having to shoulder a lifelong financial burden for his “crime” is offset, in my mind at least, by a sense of unease that we, the people, did in fact subject him to double jeopardy.

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  3. 4dbirds said on September 13, 2007 at 3:20 pm

    “Simpson having to shoulder a lifelong financial burden for his “crime” is offset, in my mind at least,….”

    I’m sorry, but crime is in quotes? The crime was murder. Also could a lawyer please explain double jeopardy to this gentleman?

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  4. nancy said on September 13, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    The so-called civil murder trial may have gotten national attention with O.J., but it’s nothing new. I recall a case in Columbus in the ’80s, where police declined to charge a man with his wife’s murder, because they felt their evidence fell short of reasonable doubt. However, it was strong enough for a civil case, where the burden of proof is not as heavy. The dead woman’s parents sued in civil court, feeling that if they couldn’t put the guy behind bars they could at least make him a pauper, which is what they did. In our country, we seem to see a life of poverty as something almost as bad as incarceration, so it was enough for them.

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  5. MarkH said on September 13, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    My previous post was lost, so I’ll try again.

    Civil vs. criminal trials, Ralph. Simpson being found “Not Guilty” in the criminal Ito fiasco means he can never be criminally adjudicated again for the murder of Nicole. Civil trial is another matter and has much different rules of evidence and reasonable doubt. The Goldmans got an excellent attorney and went for this to hang their hat on, not that they ever realistically expected the money.

    PS: I am not an attorney. I’ll defer to one for further explanation.

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  6. alex said on September 13, 2007 at 4:02 pm

    Remember that case of the Huntington cop back in the late ’80s, Nance? He got put away for shooting his male lover in the back, but then a mistrial was declared six months later and he was released. Ultimately he wasn’t retried and today lives as a free man in Florida — with the same devoted wife, I understand. The family of the victim wanted to file a civil suit but were discouraged from doing so by attorneys — a jury in Huntington County would have no sympathy for a dead fag or the family of a dead fag, they were told, so don’t even bother filing suit.

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  7. Kath in Mpls said on September 13, 2007 at 5:36 pm

    Double jeopardy does not apply in civil matters because one is not put in “jeopardy of life or limb” in a civil case. Another wrinkle with double jeopardy is that one can be acquitted in state court and then be tried in federal court under the same facts that led to the state prosecution. The cops who beat Rodney King were acquitted in state court, but later convicted of a civil rights violation in federal court. I believe the rationale is that–unlike the First Amendment–the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment has never been made applicable to the states through the due process clause of the 14th amendment.

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  8. nancy said on September 13, 2007 at 6:06 pm

    I remember the shooting, Alex, but I don’t recall the aftermath. But that’s interesting, and not too surprising at all.

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  9. basset said on September 13, 2007 at 8:13 pm

    why do they still insist on calling tv lights “klieg lights”? Colortrans, maybe, or Omnis, or something… that and calling a prompter a “TelePrompTer.” small point but it bothers me.

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  10. brian stouder said on September 13, 2007 at 10:21 pm

    I don’t like when newsies on tv refer to “our air” (as in ‘We had that guy on our air last month’). For one thing, other than the broadcast networks, most of these people are in wires and cables; and for another, even in the case of the broadcast networks, it’s still all the PUBLIC airwaves, eh?

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  11. ashley said on September 14, 2007 at 1:45 am

    The deal in Florida is that “nobody can take your house”. This was supposedly a type of tort reform to protect people from having their homestead seized. Obviously, Mr Simpson has manipulated the system. That’s why he immediately moved to Florida post-crime.

    So I guess the HELOC/refi plan will work for him forever, until they re-write the law. Don’t hold your breath.

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  12. alex said on September 14, 2007 at 7:57 am

    I spent a winter vacation in Coconut Grove in 2000, and O.J. was the talk of the town. He had just beat the living shit out of a guy at a golf course who had looked at him funny. There was all this talk about lawsuits, but I don’t think anything ever came of it.

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  13. Kirk said on September 14, 2007 at 9:12 am

    This just in:

    LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas police say O.J. Simpson was questioned last night in connection with a theft at a casino.

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  14. Jeff said on September 14, 2007 at 9:32 am

    C’mon Danny, aren’t you gonna badger our convenor for the Friday post? 😉

    But she’s probably trying not to say anything more about OJ than she has to. Isn’t it fascinating that every time he gets some media attention and pressure, he manages to slug a girlfriend or bust down a door or get kicked out of a restaurant? Cause, or effect?

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  15. nancy said on September 14, 2007 at 9:36 am

    Coming, guys. I had an 8:25 a.m. attack of the sleepies and took my afternoon nap early. Still getting used to the new schedule.

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  16. Jeff said on September 14, 2007 at 9:47 am

    Nancy, if you ever wondered what it was like to be a third grade teacher . . .

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  17. brian stouder said on September 14, 2007 at 10:30 am

    Well – last week I placed a link to a Letter to the Editor I wrote to the Logansport newspaper, about a museum that I have never yet managed to enter, despite repeated efforts. I thought the letter was suitably light and airy (and not cranky)…..but then came this

    http://www.pharostribune.com/letters/local_story_256124213.html

    arrrrggghhhh!! I genuinely feel badly about this, now. Aside from (apparently) upsetting the museum director (which was really, truly, NOT the intent), the person I offended is named ‘Thelma’; no out-of-towner could ever possibly be on the right side of an issue, if the other side has a salt-of-the-earth pillar of the community named Thelma.

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  18. LA mary said on September 14, 2007 at 10:55 am

    Brian, that’s worse than firing a nun.

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  19. Jeff said on September 14, 2007 at 10:56 am

    Your letter was quite charming, Brian; sounds to me like you managed to touch on a subject that i’ll bet my milk churn and spinning wheel the board of that society has discussed for years and not dealt with. “Y’know, Bob, we said we should allocate the eighteen bucks to get a new sign last April. Should be in the minutes.” “Wait a minute, Ray, we can’t just go spending money from last year’s budget without a continuing resolution; those motions don’t just roll over if we don’t spend the money.” “Bob, we looked over at Main St. Hardware, but i’m just not gonna go to that big box store over ‘t town where all the signs are in English AND Spanish to buy an ‘Open’ sign that slides and sticks to the inside of the glass door.” “Can’t you just make something in your woodshop out back of your house, Ray?”

    Thelma, having heard this discussion three times in four years, sighs. You just gave her an outlet for her frustration, but you shouldn’t feel bad. Maybe this will get Ray to find some scrap lumber and make the sign box with the new mitre tool he got last Christmas, and hasn’t even taken out of the box, fer Pete’s sake.

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  20. Jeff said on September 14, 2007 at 10:58 am

    ps — it isn’t mocking when you’ve sat through enough of these meetings yourself. He said. Wearily. Local history societies are church meetings without the prayer at the opening of the session (they replace it with the Pledge).

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  21. brian stouder said on September 14, 2007 at 11:25 am

    Jeff – you got me laughing! I could just hear Garrison Keiler’s voice, as I read the scenario you envisioned.

    Last week we were in Indy, and Pammy turned me loose to go visit the Benjamin Harrison home – which was magnificent! You ring the door bell on the front porch there IF (and only if) it is the top or bottom of the hour, and a docent lets you in, and collects a nominal fee, and then leads you all around. Highly recommended!!

    I had never done the canal walk in Indianapolis, so I did that, too – which was very cool. Followed it to the USS Indianapolis memorial, and past several other points of interest, to the Indiana Historical Society. If you visit there, don’t miss the Cole Porter room.

    But I digressed. One of the more arresting things in the Harrision presidential home was the kitchen – which had an ice box, and a churn, and some serious cast iron cookery. And there was a framed, hand written bill of sale, from about 1900, wherein lots of meat was purchased – legs of lamb and roasts and other cuts (must have been a big event coming that evening) and it totalled about $7

    Mary – I think you’re right; I have transgressed more egregiously than you. I blindsided the poor woman!

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  22. LA mary said on September 14, 2007 at 11:29 am

    Looks like OJ is in trouble again:

    http://www.tmz.com/

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  23. Danny said on September 14, 2007 at 12:13 pm

    Brian/Jeff/Mary: You guys are killing me. 🙂

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