Simpson Faces Road Rage Charges

Arrested on felony burglary and simple battery charges Friday, a jovial O.J. Simpson said that he welcomed the criminal prosecution as an opportunity “to show people what kind of life I live.”

“I don’t want any deals, I don’t want anything. I want to contest this,” Simpson said in a press conference after he was fingerprinted and had his mug shot taken. “So actually, for the first time, I am looking forward to a litigation.”

Accompanied by his attorney, the 53-year-old Simpson turned himself in to face charges stemming from what prosecutors have labeled a case of road rage. A neighbor of Simpson’s said that the former football star assaulted him in December after the man had flashed his lights at Simpson for running a stop sign.

If convicted of the second-degree felony, Simpson could be sentenced to 15 years in prison. He is free on $9,000 bond.

Simpson and his children moved from Los Angeles to Miami last year in part, Simpson said, to escape the glare of publicity after his acquittal in the 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. A civil jury later found Simpson liable for the killings and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages.

His 14-year-old daughter, Sydney, and son, Justin, 12, attend private school here and have managed to avoid the spotlight.

But Simpson has not.

Police have been summoned to a Miami hotel and to the home of his ex-girlfriend at least three times in response to disturbance calls.

In October 1999, police responded to a 911 call Simpson had placed from Christie Prody’s house. According to a police report, Simpson said Prody had been on a cocaine binge. He later called that a misunderstanding, and said he had placed the call about one of Prody’s friends.

Then in May 2000, Miami-Dade County police were called to a Miami hotel by security after Simpson and Prody got into a loud dispute in which Prody allegedly slapped and kicked him. But Simpson declined to press charges.

Last September, Prody told police that Simpson had used a key to break into her home and had erased a message on her answering machine and taken a letter. She did not press charges.

Even without police involvement, Simpson often pops up on the local television news--golfing or signing autographs. And he clearly relished the attention Friday.

As attorney Yale Galanter read a statement at the Miami-Dade County jail, Simpson stood at his side--mugging for the cameras, rolling his eyes and grinning broadly.

At the news conference later, he appeared almost giddy over the commotion his arrest had caused, even as he claimed the charges were unwarranted. “I know it’s a story if I’m arrested,” he said. “But I don’t think this, certainly, qualifies with other things that have happened in my life. But I’m used to it.”

The incident for which Simpson is to be arraigned in three weeks took place just blocks from his $625,000 home in the suburban Kendall neighborhood.

Jeffrey Pattinson, 55, told police that he was driving home about 7 p.m. on Dec. 4 when a black Lincoln Navigator ran a stop sign and cut in front of his car. After he turned left, Pattinson told Miami-Dade County police, he found that the Navigator had stopped in the middle of the road. As he pulled up behind, Pattinson said, a man he recognized as Simpson got out of the car, approached his driver’s side window and began shouting.

“So I blew the stop sign,” he quoted Simpson as saying. “What are you going to do--kill me and my kids?” Pattinson told police that Simpson then reached inside his car and ripped his glasses from his face, causing a laceration to his temple. Meanwhile, Pattinson said, he heard a girl’s voice yelling from Simpson’s car:, “No, daddy, no, daddy, no.”

According to Miami-Dade State Atty. Katherine Fernandez-Rundle, the felony charge stems from the allegation that Simpson committed “burglary of an occupied conveyance” when he reached into Pattinson’s car and grabbed his glasses. She said Simpson was being treated just like any other suspect in a road rage case.

If convicted, Fernandez-Rundle said, Simpson probably would not serve any time. “The goal here will be to find some sort of programming or sentence that would involve learning how to control oneself--whether it’s on the road or elsewhere,” Fernandez-Rundle said.

Simpson called the encounter with Pattinson “a non-incident.”

Despite Galanter’s efforts to keep his client from discussing the particulars of the case, Simpson could not be silenced. “Never in my life have I chased a guy in a car, put a high beam on them, blown the horn,” Simpson said. “To me, from what I gather, that’s part of what road rage is about. And I don’t think anybody has alleged that I went after anybody in a car, chased anybody anywhere.”

Simpson went on to talk about his children, saying they were “well-adjusted, with tons of friends.”

“They’re well-spoken, happy, healthy. They’re smart, smarter than I am for that matter. And they love it here in Miami, like I love it here in Miami.”

Times researcher Anna M. Virtue contributed to this story.