O.J. Simpson has been ordered to hand over any earnings from a private autograph-signing event to the mother of Ronald Goldman because of a civil verdict that found Simpson liable for his slaying.
Simpson, served with the court papers Saturday before he left the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton, suggested he would not pay anything to Ronald Goldman’s mother, Sharon Rufo.
It was unclear whether any autographs were signed, however, since the organizer canceled the event before it began upon learning Rufo lived in the area.
Simpson said no money exchanged hands because the autograph signing was handled through a promoter in Florida.
Jack Pook, a sports memorabilia marketer who arranged the signing, declined to comment Sunday night.
Simpson was acquitted of murder charges in the 1994 stabbing deaths of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Goldman. A civil jury in 1997 held the former football star liable for the killings and ordered him to pay the victims’ survivors $33.5 million.
Rufo, who lives in St. Louis County, says in Circuit Court documents that she has not collected any of her $1.27 million portion of the settlement.
On Saturday, Simpson told St. Louis television station KTVI that jurors in his criminal trial “said I was innocent.”
“I will do what the law says, but outside of that, I wouldn’t go out of my way to give them a dime,” he said of family members of his late wife and Goldman.
Rufo’s attorney, Katharyn Davis, and a sheriff’s deputy served Simpson a court order after tracking him down at a Bridgeton hotel.
Davis said she was confident the order will lead to some reimbursement for her client.
“His assistant told me nobody cares about this any more. I told O.J. and his assistant that I would personally make sure there was a writ against him in every state in this country,” Davis said.
