Opinion: O.J.? No, Owe-J

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O.J. Simpson’s past may be worth less than his future -- but you probably knew that already. More than a decade after a criminal jury found Simpson not guilty, but a civil jury found him liable for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole and Ron Goldman, the Goldman family is still trying to collect some of the $33.5 million Simpson was ordered to pony up for both deaths.

Now they’ve won a small -- a very small -- victory. Royalties from Simpson’s movies, commercials and TV shows will henceforth be going to the Goldmans.

I don’t expect there’s much in the way of residuals for Simpson’s memorable work in ``Circus of the Stars,’’ episode 13. I doubt that Hertz will be reviving its signature O.J. dash-through-the-airport spot, evocative as it is of the image of Simpson hurrying to catch a plane to Chicago in the wake of the slaughter of his ex-wife. And if Honeybaked ever revives its newspaper ad of O.J. standing over a piece of ham with a big knife in his hand, someone’s advertising career will be well and truly cooked.

As for movies, Simpson’s attorney declared that the sum of residuals from Simpson’s movie roles [remember the ‘’Naked Gun’’ series] was ``less than 39 cents.’’ So the Goldmans can claim perhaps the greatest legal victory of moral righteousness over moola since the artist Whistler sued the art critic Ruskin for libel over Ruskin’s assessment that a particular Whistler painting was ``flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.’’ Whistler won his libel suit -- but only one farthing in damages, a coin worth about a quarter of a cent.

I don’t know what legal strategy the Goldmans plan to pursue now, but if that’s true about the ``less than 39 cents,’’ then maybe the next lawsuit in the never-ending Simpson saga should be Simpson v. whoever guided his career, for not getting him a better back-end deal for all those ``Naked Gun’’ movies.

The judge wouldn’t let the Goldmans lay claim to any future Simpson earnings, like the money he makes signing autographs, and until he can verify the contract, the judge says he won’t decide whether Simpson must turn over the reported million-dollar advance for the ill-fated ``If I Did It’’ -- you know, the book that killed Judith Regan’s publishing career.