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California

CALIFORNIA BRIEFING /

By Harriet Ryan
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While O.J. Simpson wiled away another morning in a Nevada prison, a group of attorneys and former acquaintances gathered in a Santa Monica courtroom Monday to debate the rightful ownership of memorabilia, including the brownish-green suit Simpson is said to have worn at his 1995 acquittal.

A onetime agent for the NFL star, Mike Gilbert, said at the hearing that he had the jacket, trousers and shirt in a storage unit near his home in Fresno. Gilbert says Simpson gave him the suit the morning after the acquittal, although Simpson’s current lawyer says the garments are fakes.

Judge Gerald Rosenberg ordered Gilbert not to sell or otherwise dispose of the suit until he determined if it belonged to Fred Goldman, father of slaying victim Ronald Goldman, who is trying to collect his portion of the $33.5-million civil judgment against Simpson. Gilbert contends the acquittal suit is his property because Simpson gave it to him before the 1997 civil verdict.

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The judge gave attorneys for Goldman permission to depose Gilbert about other items he has that are connected to Simpson.

-- Harriet Ryan

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Harriet Ryan

Harriet Ryan is an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the paper in 2008, she has written about high-profile people, including Phil Spector, Michael Jackson and Tom Girardi, and institutions, including USC, the State Bar of California, the Catholic Church, the Kabbalah Centre and Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting with colleagues Matt Hamilton and Paul Pringle in 2019. She and Hamilton won the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability in 2023. She previously worked at Court TV and the Asbury Park Press. She is a graduate of Columbia University.

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