False Danger Report Made on Simpson Children

Hours after O.J. Simpson was hit with an $8.5-million judgment in court last week, authorities visited his Rockingham Avenue estate to check out what now appears to be a baseless report that his two children “might be in danger,” officials said Sunday.

Social workers with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services asked police to accompany them to the home around 10:30 p.m. last Tuesday and “verify the safety of the children,” said LAPD Cmdr. Tim McBride. A social worker interviewed the children and “made the call that everything was OK,” he said.

“I know that there is no credence to be given to that report,” Marjorie Fuller, a court-appointed attorney for the children, said Sunday.

“The social service worker and police also found no credence. Particularly in this case,” she added, “if social workers and police had found one tiny iota of danger, these kids would have been out of the house in a second.”

Fuller said the visit appeared to have been based on a tipster claiming to have conversed with Simpson’s 11-year-old daughter, Sydney, and that the child had suggested that Simpson would kill her, her 8-year-old brother Justin and himself--”with a gun, this is my understanding,” said Fuller--if the civil verdict went against him.

“It had to be someone, I gather, who would be credible in saying that they knew Sydney. Who that was I don’t know and don’t even want to speculate at this point,” Fuller said. She said she was outraged by the incident and pledged to find out who had called authorities to trigger it--information she said she is entitled to.

“I think it’s my job to do as much investigation as I can and push this thing forward.”

Fuller said Sunday that she was called at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday from the Simpson household, where Simpson’s mother, Eunice, Simpson’s two older children and other relatives were present with the younger children.

Earlier Tuesday evening, Fuller said, Simpson had “sat down with the children. They had ice cream, and he explained to them the verdict. After he got the kids settled and the homework done, he left to meet with” his attorney.

Simpson, found not guilty of murder 16 months ago in the knife killings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman was awarded custody of his two youngest children by an Orange County judge in December.

But he did not fare as well last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, as a jury found that he was responsible for the killings and should pay $8.5 million in compensatory damages to the Goldmans. The jury is weighing punitive damages that could total millions more.

Simpson was not at home Tuesday evening when authorities arrived, Fuller said, but he was contacted and soon returned.

Simpson asked the social worker whether he could wake up Justin, said Fuller, “so Justin wasn’t awakened in the middle of the night by policemen again.”

“Whoever did this had to know that that’s what would happen,” she said.

“The social worker and police talked to the children” out of earshot of the family, “and ascertained that they were in no danger, and left,” said Fuller.

Fuller said she spoke with Simpson and the children after officials left the house. “They told him what the report had been. They could not tell him who made the report . . . they told him that their finding was that the report was false, that they were sorry they had to bother him, that they had to do their job.”

She said the family were treated well by police and social service workers.

Fuller saw the children Sunday afternoon, she added, and they are fine. “They were annoyed and angry at being awakened and having people come to them in the middle of the night and ask them what they considered to be weird questions,” she explained.

“The kids are really great kids. They are bright, they are tough . . . they’ve got a real core of strength.”

“They want to be left alone . . . they want not to have this kind of constant picking and aggravation aimed at them.”