Goldman Ends Attempt to Get Simpson Fund

Attorneys for the family of slaying victim Ronald Lyle Goldman told a Superior Court judge Thursday that they were grudgingly abandoning efforts to get at O.J. Simpson’s pension funds, from which the former football great nets about $16,000 a month.

The pension--which Simpson’s lawyers have long contended is protected from all creditors--has been a thorn in the Goldman family’s side because it affords Simpson a comfortable lifestyle although he owes millions to the families of both Goldman and Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson.

Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, the only civil trial plaintiff to go after the pension, saw the fund as the best source to recover money from Simpson, who says he has no significant assets other than the pension fund from his Orenthal Productions Inc.

Despite indications that seizing the pension was a long-shot bet, attorneys for Fred Goldman indicated several months ago that they would seek to attach that money to satisfy the $19-million judgment Simpson owes their client.

The debt was part of the $33.5 million in damages a civil trial jury awarded the families of Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. A criminal court jury acquitted Simpson of charges that he murdered the two on June 12, 1994.

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By Thursday, the attorneys said they had decided not to make a claim on Simpson’s retirement money--prompting a scolding from Superior Court Judge Irving Shimer for wasting the court’s time.

“We don’t have enough facts to beat them on their assertion that they’re exempt,” said Goldman attorney Gary Caris.

But Caris also asked the judge to leave the door open for attorneys to make a claim on the funds at a later date, should they discover new information.

Shimer agreed not to bar Goldman from trying again to get at the pension, but only after questioning and berating Caris for 75 minutes.

After four months of leading the court to believe that Goldman was seeking the pension funds, only to drop the matter, convincing any judge to entertain the issue again “might be tougher than climbing Mt. Everest in a bathing suit,” Shimer said.

“Hope springs eternal,” Shimer told Caris. “So you have every right to hope somewhere, sometime, something is going to happen so that--notwithstanding federal law--we can plunge back into this issue.”

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Although the Goldman and Brown families moved to seize Simpson’s belongings from his Rockingham Avenue estate, Simpson has made it clear that he prefers to pay his debt to the Brown estate first--which benefits the two children Simpson had with Nicole Brown Simpson.

Simpson also says that many of his more valuable belongings are unavailable to Goldman because they were long ago placed into trust for the children. The validity of that trust has yet to be decided in court.

Shimer continued to hold up the sale of the items seized from Simpson’s home in March, ruling he would not put either of the victim’s families first in line to collect from Simpson.

The two families had each claimed to have priority in recovering money from the sale of Simpson’s belongings. But Shimer, who lamented the apparent breakdown in communication between the families, said he would not reward either side in what he called “an unseemly race to the courthouse.”

Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki had consolidated several claims into one case against Simpson during the civil trial, but ruled later that each side had “separate and distinct interests” and was entitled to a separate judgment.

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That, Shimer said, was a mistake. Fujisaki should have let the judgment stand as a single award, with different amounts going to each of the parties based on the proportion of their claim against Simpson.

Shimer stopped short of ordering such a division, however, saying he would wait until attorneys had a chance to negotiate an agreement or appeal his ruling.

“I have left the parties staring and glaring at each other,” the judge acknowledged.

In the meantime, Shimer ordered the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to continuing holding Simpson’s belongings until an agreement is reached--at a cost, one attorney said later, of $2,000 a month.