Part 5 Storyville

-CROWD MURMUR

-All right, let's see what OJ can do.

He's got it up, and he holds it good enough

to get a call from the referee.

OJ Simpson stands up

and that one is hit hard to left.

High enough, wind helps, and it's gone.

Watch this.

Tell me how many right-handers you've ever seen do this,

pick off the five-ten.

CHEERING

The Juice is moving it out.

He's got a good run going. Heading for the hurdle.

This is going to be a good time for OJ Simpson.

This programme contains very strong language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience.

I have just a few final instructions that I need to give

to you before you start your deliberations on this matter.

You are reminded that you must not be influenced

by mere sentiment, sympathy,

passion, prejudice,

public opinion or public feeling.

Both the prosecution and the defendant have a right

to expect that you will conscientiously consider and weigh

all the evidence,

apply the law as I have instructed you

and reach a just verdict regardless of the consequences.

There's a rough rule of thumb

for jury deliberations.

One day of deliberation for each week of trial.

So, we all settle in and we think, "OK,

"we're going to be here a while."

All the lawyers on the case were going to do something

that first day that the jury was out,

because everyone knew we had at least one day.

It was Johnnie's birthday.

He and his wife had taken a one-day excursion

up to the wine country...

..and I called Johnnie from the courtroom.

I said, "Jay, Jay, we got a verdict."

He said, "What?!"

"We got a verdict, man."

We reached the verdict.

We were happy about that.

After more than eight months of testimony,

more than 100 witnesses and more than 45,000 pages

of court transcripts, the jurors,

who'd been advised not to talk about the case

since it began, came to their decision

over the course of a morning's work.

We had to go home.

That's all I got to say.

We'd been gone a year and we had to come home.

Being held up for nine months,

I wouldn't want that,

but why don't we talk about a couple of things

that may be on our mind?

They did not deliberate.

I truly was offended.

267 days.

-That's how long the trial lasted.

-Mm-hm.

-1,105 pieces of evidence.

-Mm-hm.

45,000 pages of trial transcript from 133 witnesses.

How the hell did you deliberate for three and a half hours?

How many days was it again?

267 days.

266 nights.

266 nights I went back to that room, alone.

Wasn't able to talk to other jurors.

Wasn't able to talk to family.

Nobody but me and my thoughts.

I waited till the end to come up with a decision,

but each night that I went home

after listening to testimony,

I stored that.

By the end of that trial, I knew where I was,

and it was clear.

OJ was extremely emotional.

Puts his hand on the glass like you see on TV,

and he said, "Look, guys,

"if it's guilty,

"I never want to see you guys again.

"Don't come see me in prison,

"because your lives are going to be changing,

"and what am I going to say?

"My life is the same as it was yesterday.

"Same as it's going to be tomorrow.

"Nothing will ever change.

"So, I don't want to see you guys again, ever."

We got there around 3:30 in the morning.

By six o'clock, it was just very crowded.

People everywhere,

policemen everywhere.

We were underneath the criminal courts building,

in case there was trouble.

They brought in police on horseback...

..as if they were preparing for a riot.

Why don't you get the fuck out of here, you fucking asshole?

'I had reporters coming to my front door,

'and I had really had it.'

-Can I fucking hit him?

-No.

I think part of me knew which way that verdict was going.

For a trial that seemed to go on forever, the fact

that it will end has produced a national surge of adrenaline.

Did you have a rather sleepless night last night, Mr Garcetti?

Sleepless night? I had my usual four hours' sleep.

NEWS BROADCASTS IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES

I have to fully admit, I thought he was guilty.

I thought it was obvious he was guilty.

So I thought the jury...agreed with me.

And the record should reflect

that we have now been rejoined by all the members

of our jury panel and our alternates.

All right, Mrs Robertson, do you have the envelope

with the sealed verdict, please?

-Yes, Your Honour.

-All right, would you give those to Deputy Trower?

The judge had admonished us not to say a word,

not to make a sound,

not to move, not to do anything

but sit there and listen to the verdict.

All right, Mr Simpson, would you please stand and face the jury?

In the matter of The People of the State of California

vs Orenthal James Simpson,

case number BA097211,

we, the jury in the above entitled action,

find the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty of the crime

of murder in violation of penal code section 187a,

a felony upon Nicole Brown Simpson, a human being,

as charged in count...

It was almost like an out-of-body experience.

I had a feeling of numbness.

Did this really happen?

They really did it. They acquitted him.

They really did it. They walked him out the door.

Johnnie is in back of OJ and Johnnie's saying,

"Juice, you're going home," and he's putting his head against his back.

"You're going home, Juice, you're going home!"

It was fabulous.

I actually thought I might pass out from shock.

I was so astonished.

Orenthal James Simpson,

not guilty of the crime of murder

upon Ronald Lyle Goldman.

One of the young guys,

either one of the Goldman families or the Brown family,

he said, "Murderer, murderer."

I was focused on Kim Goldman.

..convicted of at least one crime of murder

of the first degree and one or more crimes of murder

of the first or second degree to be not true.

It hurt me to know that I had to hurt somebody else

like that, and I didn't want to.

SOBBING

My mom and dad, just stoic.

I'm the more emotional one.

There was this deputy there,

and I was like, "Can I leave?"

And she goes, "You can't leave."

The other piece of this was that kind of moment

of triumphant Simpson.

I remember thinking that that gesture, that's a competitor.

He had been through a big ordeal.

He'd fought hard and he'd won.

One of the jurors - I believe it was juror number six,

a male black - stood in the jury box

and raised his fist like this.

What?

This was a guy who presented as THE most mild-mannered,

and then we find out, yeah, he was a member

of the Black Panthers, years ago.

Later, I was talking with the Deputy Sheriff.

He had taken jurors to where they were released.

So glad to be back. I feel free.

He said, "All across this parking lot,

"there was high fives and cheers and smiles."

He said, "I heard it over and over.

"That was payback for Rodney King."

We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty

of the crime of assault with a deadly weapon.

Do you think that there were members

of the jury that voted to acquit OJ

because of Rodney King?

-Yes.

-You do?

Yes.

How many do you think felt that way?

Oh, probably 90% of them.

90%?

Did you feel that way?

Yes.

That was payback?

Uh-huh.

You think that's right?

The majority of the world, or the majority of Americans,

think that we're a group of idiots who didn't get it right.

I think that the jury was made to be the scapegoat

for their faults.

It was a mistake to present Fuhrman the way they did.

It was a mistake to let Darden get up there

and be a part of that case.

Had they come correct,

had they had the right attorneys up there

putting on the case that they need to put on,

they would've won.

It wasn't payback.

THEY messed up.

It may have been payback,

but it wasn't payback for anything that happened recently.

It was payback for what's happened over the last 400 years.

It was payback for how black people are treated in America.

I believe that that was on the minds of

every black person in America.

In the matter of the People of the State

of California vs Orenthal James Simpson,

case number BA097211...

We, the jury in the above entitled action,

find the defendant Orenthal James Simpson not guilty.

CHEERING

There was joy.

You could hear it in the barbershop

or the beauty salon or in the classroom at the school,

on the streets.

A release of breath, exhaling.

The Juice is loose!

He's loose! He's loose!

Free at last, free at last.

Thank God almighty, I'm free at last.

It was like that day Jackie Robinson

opened the door for black players.

This trial tapped into the racial history of Los Angeles.

I didn't realise how much it tapped

into the NATIONAL pain of race relations.

..Orenthal James...

Orenthal James Simpson...

Orenthal James Simpson not guilty...

It was all so much bigger than we were.

So much bigger.

I think the black jubilation

was very offensive and very hurtful.

Who laughing now? You know who did it?

My family did it, the races of America.

Those films of African-Americans cheering

and whites crying,

it put a huge red line across society.

Certainly, the resentment that African-Americans

have toward whites...

..was shocking.

It was absolutely shocking.

Now you know how it feels.

We are flush with illustrations

where we have been the victims

of what you consider to be racial thinking.

And that's why your moment of joy...

..may only be a moment.

That's why you seize your moment of joy,

because tomorrow - sorrow.

To actually have a black man found not guilty,

when every other black man who's ever been

blamed for anything like that

or anything NEAR something like that, has been killed,

this is indicative of progress,

regardless of what you think about him.

It was like, "Wow, things have changed,

"somewhat."

I just really hoped that,

probably in a terribly Pollyanna-ish way,

I really hoped we had come some distance.

My white neighbours, people I'd grown up with all my life,

the person I talked to every single day,

just stopped speaking to me because of this trial.

I received hate mail.

They would send the hate mail to the court,

the court would forward it to me.

I got a lot of personal blame,

a lot of personal threats.

In essence, you know, "You deserve to die."

What sort of personal toll

did this take on the prosecutors who tried the case?

I shake my head because I haven't been able

to weigh it entirely,

but the toll is immense.

If there was anything that ever motivated me

throughout the trial, it was the idea,

the notion, that one day I'd have to turn to the Goldmans...

..with the realisation that he had been acquitted.

I am honoured to have...

Chris was in bad shape.

He was really devastated.

A verdict of guilty would have been redeeming for him

in the black community.

You can feel this sense of brokenness within him,

because he gave everything that he had.

My guess is that if Chris were given the opportunity again

to say yes or no on this case,

he wouldn't have taken it.

He's paid one huge price.

This has been a hard-fought battle,

but I want to make it as clear as I can that this trial is over.

No-one in our community believes in murder,

and our hearts have gone out

to these two families from the very beginning.

A statement from our father.

I'm relieved that this part of the incredible nightmare

that occurred on June 12th, 1994, is over.

I will pursue, as my primary goal in life,

the killer or killers who slaughtered Nicole

and Mr Goldman.

Whatever it takes, I'll provide.

They are out there somewhere.

The children.

You did tell them?

Yes, we told them.

Told them Daddy's free.

Did they say anything to you?

They were happy.

They love Daddy.

We have never said anything negative about Daddy.

People were on fire, excited about...

finally, the criminal-justice system worked in favour

of an African-American male.

But everything is not about race.

Everything is not about how we were treated

historically in this country.

I didn't see it as an example

of African-Americans being free

or we beating the criminal-justice system.

Not for African-Americans.

It was a victory for a rich guy named OJ Simpson,

and I was troubled by it.

-RADIO:

-'Now, go back in, go back in.'

Did he give you any indication

when he would want the children, or what would happen?

I think he is reasonable enough to know

that the children have a good life here.

That they find strength and love in this house.

'They switched over.'

I don't think that he knows, really,

what he wants, right now.

'There they are, right there.

'Bryce, go in tight.'

'I can tell you right now he ain't coming out any time soon.

'OK, we're going to get up, we're going to pull up high.

'Get out of all this bullshit.'

Yes!

Take off your jacket.

TV NEWS REPORT PLAYS

You're home!

What has the atmosphere been like at Mr Simpson's house today?

Who is with him? What are they all doing?

It's, as you can imagine, a very, very touching time.

A very cheerful time for a man who's spent 15 months

in prison and was found innocent.

-TV:

-'..now to the criminal courts building for the prosecution,

'whose conference is about to begin.'

I want to hear this like a hole in the head.

Don't even listen to it.

How do you turn this up?

-I'm going to bounce, you guys.

-Yeah.

Yeah, this is the one case, you got the wrong guy

like all those other cases you led who didn't get away.

He invited the lawyers to come by for a drink

and I was the first one there.

And he was up in the bedroom.

He said, "I wonder where Bob Shapiro is."

I said, "Look up above you.

"He's on television.

"Barbara Waw-ah."

Mr Shapiro, you said in the beginning that race

would not be a determining part of this case,

that you would not play the race card.

The race card was surely played.

Barbara, my position was always the same.

That race would not and should not be a part of this case.

I was wrong.

Not only did we play the race card,

we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.

The hypocrisy of his suggesting that the decision

to use race was a bad one,

when it was the card that he stacked the deck with.

From the very beginning, it was his theory.

Would you work again on a case with Johnnie Cochran?

-No.

-Would you work on a case again with F Lee Bailey?

I will not talk to F Lee Bailey again.

Thank you, Mr Shapiro.

Everybody say "hogwash", c'mon.

ALL: Hogwash!

Come on, talk to each other a little bit,

come on, talk to each other.

Not so fast. OK.

Wow! Where'd we go that night?

Probably home and cried.

Probably home and cried.

And probably said 100 times,

"How did he get away with it?"

You don't ever get over it.

You don't ever get over it.

It doesn't go away that he can't live his dreams.

It's always still there...

..close to the surface.

It's always still there.

We actually believed that if he's found not guilty,

we all go back to our lives and just move on.

He thought he'd walk right back into it.

His viewpoint, "I'm back and I'm going to be playing

"golf every day and I'm going to be OJ and everything's fine."

I think he felt he could con the rest

of the world into believing that.

Here we have the top-ten ways he's searching for the real killers.

Number nine...

Yeah,

excellent piece of detective work.

I think the vast majority of the people in Brentwood

thought he was guilty,

and it became very uncomfortable for him to be here.

I saw him filling up his car one day,

and people, literally, were giving him the finger

and screaming insults. He filled up his car

and pretended he didn't hear anything and moved on.

I was walking the dog, and that feeling you get

where the hair stands up on the back of your neck

where you know someone's watching you,

and OJ's leaning out of the Rolls-Royce,

and I remember saying,

"Oh, shit."

I walk over to him and he gets out,

and we hug and we kiss.

He turned to me and said, "Why don't you come see me?

"Not too many people come to see me."

I said, "Sure, of course I will."

There was that hug goodbye,

and "of course I'm going to see you",

where he knew I was never going to see him,

and I knew I was never going to see him.

You had a pretty close relationship -

is that true?

We had the type of relationship

that we'd see each other a couple times a year.

But I wasn't one of his best friends.

All the black people in my life used to tell me, "Man,

"white America will turn on you,

"and they will zip up your nigger suit on you so fast

"and they will forget about you like that."

Why don't you sell the Brentwood estate,

go away for a little while?

Go where? What, do they want me to go to Africa?

Is that what some of those people would want?

Go where? I live in LA.

I see people... I haven't seen 'em.

I hear there are people in Brentwood that don't want me in Brentwood.

Maybe they are, but I would say this.

I think I've probably lived in Brentwood longer

than 90% of 'em. They're squatters.

If they don't want me in Brentwood, THEY should leave.

What do you say to criticism about

-missing your daughter's birthday?

-Hey, OJ!

Esquire had chosen me

to do a story about OJ Simpson.

I was interested in OJ as a pariah.

Don't play with OJ!

Go away, OJ, go away!

I wanted to try to find out how or whether he could uphold

the OJ persona in the face of public wrath and hatred.

Guilty! Guilty!

I don't think there's anybody out there

that won't say that wherever they met me,

all over this country for the last 30 years,

I took time, I treated you the way I wanted to be treated.

He's a wife-beater! Go home!

I don't think there's anybody out there that ever met me anywhere -

in airports, in ballparks, on the street -

that I wasn't kind to you,

I didn't treat you the way I thought you wanted to be treated.

Anybody who's ever written me, I wrote 'em back.

Charities that ever called me, I always sent them something,

at my cost.

I only ask you to give me that courtesy,

to treat me the way I treated you.

You ugly murderer!

You ugly-ass murderer!

I felt sorry for him, I did.

I just couldn't bring myself to feel

that he was...

..bad in the pure sense of the word.

I kept feeling like he was a victim.

That's all I want to do. Provide for my family, my kids,

and give me the opportunity and a fair shake.

Fuck you, OJ!

But I swear to you, before my God,

I did not commit these crimes.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

The easy answer is to say that people were indignant

that OJ got away with murder,

but the level, the scope of the reaction,

my sense was that there was a lot of racism in it.

This way, please, OJ.

He wanted the love back.

He wanted to be loved again.

# O-O-O...

# J! #

-He is our brother.

-AUDIENCE:

-Yes!

C'mon, you can clap on that.

We have never believed that he was guilty.

-AUDIENCE:

-Yes!

He wanted acceptance from the community.

He knew that he was ostracized

by a whole number of people.

-Don't take a step back.

-Right!

You just get with God and you get ready for your comeback.

So, when you're...

I think he felt a sense of deliverance,

and maybe he felt that God delivered him.

I'm not trying to restore any image.

I'm not trying to get back with God what I've lost.

I'm trying to do one thing.

I'm trying to go to Heaven.

APPLAUSE

But I got criticised.

"How can you accept someone who is a murderer?"

Well, the court didn't say he was a murderer.

Court said he was innocent,

and Jesus accepted all people.

CHEERING

-CROWD CHANTS:

-OJ! OJ!

This is like a dream come true for me,

to meet Mr OJ Simpson.

Hug me, darling! I love you!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Let me put it on, man.

He said he was trying to thank the people that stuck by him,

but that wasn't OJ. I mean,

to me, it didn't ring true.

Listen, this thing ain't close to fitting me!

We'd go to Roscoe's, too.

Go down and eat chicken and waffles.

And I remember telling him, "When in the hell

"did you ever eat chicken and waffles before?"

But that's where black America went.

And you would hear people, "Oh, so now you're black.

"Now you're black."

C'mon up here, African.

We appreciate you coming out tonight.

I grew up in the projects, you know.

No-one has to tell me, "You act black."

I grew up in the projects, I know about being black.

I AM black.

But once I started getting over at the end of the '60s,

what I'd done is something that's happening

with a lot of black men in America.

You find yourself protecting your place in society.

You tend to think that you're immune to something.

You know what's happening out there is still happening,

but you're hoping to change

and you're fool... You're really fooling yourself.

But at this point, I'm in the community,

I'm trying to hang around people that I think

can better educate me.

I think I have a unique opportunity here.

I'd like to be able to take advantage of it,

and I'd like to not...

possibly once again let you down.

-Thank you.

-Oh, thank you!

I was at home in New York. The phone rang.

And a voice said, "Hey, it's OJ.

"I'm not done talking to you.

"I don't know why, but I talk to you like you're my shrink or something."

He said to me, "Let's say I committed this crime.

"If I killed her, it had to have been

"because I loved her very much, right?"

Every time he spoke about Nicole,

it was this mix of affection...

..irritation,

indignation and kind of wanting to prove to the person

he's speaking to...

..that she was impossible.

He's not wired like everybody else.

He never wept for Nicole - or the kids.

Like, "My kids are going to have to grow up without their mom."

The Browns had Sydney and Justin.

We'd have to transfer the kids,

so they can go and spend the weekend with their dad,

and it's their dad and I'm respecting that.

Before, we were talking about a conversation

you had with Judy in the last month or so,

down in Laguna.

OJ told the psychologist that Justin

had been calling him,

for him to come down to watch him play basketball.

And the psychologist said, "Well, if that's the case, you should go."

I did not know until after all this happened

that the Browns didn't know that OJ was coming down.

We walked into the gym and we watched Justin warm up.

Judy walks in, she sits behind me,

and she says, "I want to talk to you."

And I think she referred to me as a coward or gutless

or something like that.

And she said something about, uh...

OJ controlling me.

Then Lou walked up.

He started in on me, about, uh, "Nobody wants him down here."

He said something about a scene. I said, "There's no scene here."

I said, "If anybody's making a scene here, it's Judy.

"OJ hasn't done anything."

The kids were taken away from my mom on Christmas Eve.

That was devastating.

Sydney would say, "I want to go..."

uh, to her grandparents,

and he said, "They don't want you. They want you for the money.

"They want you for the child support. That's why they want you."

It was strained.

One night, I went to Rockingham.

And we're drinking Rolling Rock beer outside...

..and he was smoking pot.

He was looking around the backyard,

reliving all the different events that had happened there.

And I just asked him, "What happened June 12th?"

And he asked me what I thought happened.

I said, "I have always thought you probably did it."

I said, "I know what you told AC.

"You know, that you went there,

"but you just went to see what was going on,

"but you didn't take a knife."

He shook his head...

and he said, "Yeah."

And he said that if she wouldn't have opened the door

with a knife, she'd still be alive.

I believed that for the longest time.

And then I...

He went there to kill her.

He went there to kill her because of how she made him feel.

Being rejected, that she didn't need him.

And then, of course, the Marcus factor.

I'm better than you.

He was seeing

Marcus was him,

you know, 15 years younger.

And I guess the part that bothers me about it...

..is he left...

..the kids upstairs...

..to walk out.

They could've walked out and found their mom like that.

I die tomorrow, I would know without a doubt that he did it.

Not even a slight maybe that he didn't.

We had a year to file the civil suit.

We wanted a court of law to say, "You did it."

OJ Simpson is back in the news this morning.

He wanted his deposition in the wrongful death lawsuits

kept secret, but a judge in Santa Monica

ruled Wednesday that his testimony will not be sealed.

The judge also ruled it will be videotaped.

Present is plaintiff Frederick Goldman.

-Swear the witness.

-Would you raise your right hand, please?

'I wanted to be in the room when the deposition'

was being taken.

-..so help you God?

-I do.

To be able to say, "We're after you."

Do you recall an incident when you chased her?

-No.

-Grabbed her?

-No.

-Threw her into the walls?

-No.

-Threw all of her clothes out the window into the street?

-No.

-And bruised her?

-No.

-You don't recall any of that?

-No.

Listening to him was everything from disgust

to astonishment.

HE MOUTHS

-Excuse me?

-I said, "Don't answer."

-He whispered something, Mr Baker.

-No, I did not.

-I didn't, uh...

-You mouthed something.

I think I'm allowed to mouth something to myself, aren't I?

What did you mouth?

He was cocky.

He was never forthcoming with anything.

We are back on the record now.

He'd be smiling,

like the whole thing was a joke.

What's that paper there for?

Well, I... I designed a golf hole that he's going to play,

a course he's going to play, and I was just telling him about a hole

that's on that golf course.

And that's how seriously he was taking it.

Did you ever buy shoes that you knew were Bruno Magli shoes?

No.

How do you know that?

Cos I know if Bruno Magli makes shoes that look like the shoes

they had in court that's involved in this case,

I would have never worn those ugly-ass shoes.

He'd lied about everything.

There's not an honest bone in his body.

You were sort of obsessed

with her having that relationship with Keith, right?

No.

-Didn't bother you at all?

-Her with Keith, with Marcus,

with any of 'em, didn't bother me at all.

-Not at all?

-No.

He's lived a life of fraud and being a fake

for God knows how many decades,

to a point where I think he just believes his own bull.

I gotta take a leak.

Mr Cowlings, I'm going to ask you to look at...

..this picture.

It's been previously marked as exhibit number 45.

Ask if you recognise that picture.

45.

-Yes.

-And who do you recognise that to be?

Nicole.

And does that appear to be the way

that Nicole looked when you went over there

that early morning time...

Hey, man, you give me a break.

The OJ Simpson civil case gets under way today.

The families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are suing him.

This time, the judge is keeping cameras out of the courtroom.

I truly, truly, truly wish it had been televised.

It was a totally different dynamic.

No longer the killer and his attorneys

in charge of the courtroom.

It was the system at work.

Meanwhile, the jury's going to look very different in this case.

You're coming out of a different area. You're coming out of

the Santa Monica area, instead of downtown Los Angeles,

and, obviously, the make-up of your jury pool is going to be different.

Basically, they just repeated the case that we presented,

but they had Simpson.

They could call him to the witness stand

and cross-examine him.

One of the things that came up was if he owned the shoes.

Bruno Maglis. Because the footprints of those shoes

were at the crime scene.

-You thought those were ugly-ass shoes.

-Yes.

Really?

Wrong, liar.

Not only did we see photographs of him wearing

the ugly-ass shoes,

we were then able to compare it to the footprints

at the crime scene.

And we're right back to...done.

Rare shoes.

Only 299 pairs sold in this country.

OJ Simpson said that he'd never own the shoes,

and yet he was forced to admit that that was him

in the picture.

It was like watching a little child

getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

All it did was reaffirm what I knew,

in my heart,

and that was - he was a murderer.

Time to turn our attention to the OJ Simpson civil case.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations today.

In a civil trial, all you have to prove

is that they're guilty by a preponderance of the evidence.

That means more likely than not.

51% is enough.

It's a very low standard of proof.

Completely different than the criminal trial.

A very brief interruption, everybody.

In case you haven't heard the news until now,

there has been a verdict in the OJ Simpson

civil trial in California.

And between 35 and 45 minutes from now,

everybody will be back in the courtroom in Santa Monica

to hear the verdict.

Just to remind people, we are in Washington today.

Helps our audience.

My employers have decided that some time ago that the President's

address to the nation is what's important to the future,

and is fascinated, I guess to be honest, as we all are

about the OJ Simpson verdict.

Our bosses have made the decision, so let's go back.

APPLAUSE

We must pursue a deeper dialogue with China.

I'm told people are assembling

in the courtroom and that they expect

to be able to read this verdict within moments.

OJ looks straight at the court

and she read the answer, yes,

that Simpson was liable for the death

of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

This jury was unified in their decision.

There was no question that he had committed these acts,

and he was totally responsible beyond any doubt.

It was amazing.

Finally had a court say, "You're responsible for Ron's death."

Our family is grateful

for a verdict

of responsibility, which is all we ever wanted,

and we have it, thank God.

CHEERING

Simpson was found liable to the tune of 8½ million.

And the jury isn't finished yet.

On Thursday jurors will return to hear testimony

about additional punitive damage.

Guilty!

Total - 33 million.

We were so shocked at the figure.

It was astonishing.

But what people don't realise about a civil trial

is that a judgment is a piece of paper,

and that is what you get.

Then it becomes the creditor's responsibility

to figure out a way to collect on it.

Do you have a moral obligation to pay any of that?

I don't feel I have a moral obligation to pay,

because morally I've done nothing wrong.

I think I have a legal obligation

when I have money to pay.

I wish I could sign a 50 million contract

and give them whatever they have to give,

if I knew I could get it back on appeal.

Oh, he knew he'd never pay.

Because the system wanted to make certain

that they got everything he had,

they brought in the guy that handles the estates

of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and James Dean,

to say that OJ was in that same class,

that he would make that kind of money for the rest of his life.

As his agent, I'm sitting there... Not going to happen.

Those people didn't murder anybody,

or at least in the perception of America,

he didn't murder anybody.

It became our goal to be after him

for the rest of his life.

He's going to always know that we're right behind him,

looking over his shoulder, trying to figure out a way to get him.

In other news this morning, OJ Simpson is being ordered to

turn over some precious belongings to satisfy the judgment

against him in his civil lawsuit.

The half-million-dollar inventory includes

Simpson's golf clubs

and his Andy Warhol silkscreen of himself.

Simpson will have seven days to turn over the items to be sold.

We had received a fax in the office.

Sheriff's Department needed to know where to park

these two giant moving trucks.

So, we knew the day before that they were coming

to seize these various items.

There was quite a few people.

His family and friends moving stuff out

and taking it to different homes.

OJ was out playing golf.

Deniability.

Sheriff's Department, they were coming through the gates

at eight o'clock or seven o'clock or something.

As they were coming in, I was leaving.

Literally, gates were open at the same time. I left.

I had his collectibles, personal items,

Tiffany lamps, a carpet.

A bunch of stuff went out to a storage unit

in south San Francisco, but it was scattered.

I mean, just all over.

It was like a biblical flood carrying away everything.

He lived a materialistically lavish life,

but that wasn't what was most important.

When they wanted his mother's piano, that rocked his foundation.

They wanted her house up in Potrero Hill.

Those things bothered him.

It bothered me when they started taking

things that I didn't think was just.

OJ, the congratulations of all of us

-for your impeccable character.

-Thank you, Mr Cosell.

Thank you, Mr Simpson.

How do you take away his Heisman?

That was who he was when I was innocent

and he was innocent.

-Was that Heisman given to you?

-No, it wasn't given to me.

I basically just took it.

I had an arrangement with Mr Simpson,

where I would be paid X amount of money

or I could take it out in memorabilia.

So I took the Heisman and a few other items...

..I figured were mine.

The IRS has filed a lien against OJ Simpson's

Brentwood mansion.

It says he owes more than 685,000 in back taxes,

interest and penalties.

I haven't made any payments in quite a while.

I love the house - my kids were born there.

I lost a daughter there.

We had some great times there but it's gone,

and now I gotta find someplace else

to have some great times, you know, move on.

The last day at Rockingham,

it was kind of an odd, surreal day.

For me, it was emotional.

And for OJ, I guess he had kind of mentally checked out,

where it wasn't.

Hey, Mike.

I want you to go over there and shoot over the fence,

walk through the gate, so I can give you the old...

He's like, "OK, now go outside of the gate,"

like I'm a tourist, and I'm sneaking in through his gate,

filming him taking the flag down.

Because the tabloids were paying, like, 150 grand,

200 grand, crazy money.

Hey, this is private property.

C'mon, man, look.

C'mon, man, gimme a break.

C'mon, guy, c'mon.

Putting the flag up, taking it down, putting it up,

taking it down.

Him folding it and trying to get emotional,

where he's tearing up.

Hey, come on, this is...

He's really working it, tearing up.

Oh, man, that's real classy.

Take care.

Everybody's chasing OJ for a story today.

Do an interview, do an interview.

I need you to do an interview. I'm going to dog you out bad, too.

I'm going to pimp ya!

I needed a challenge.

I said, "I can promote anybody, anything, it doesn't matter."

So, my attorney came back and he said,

"I got just the thing for you, it's OJ Simpson."

I'm like, "Well, that's a challenge."

I'm like "Hm."

I put him in a world where he was happy again.

Then, when I saw what happened,

I said, "We should just get a camera and film this."

-Cheers, OJ.

-Cheers.

I think that there are people offended now that you're here.

You know, I would think that the ones who were offended

maybe tuned into another channel.

-I don't know, that's just a guess on my part.

-Yeah.

I would like to think that the majority of your listeners

would not be offended.

I know you'd like to think that, OJ, but I'm not sure.

First, I just want to say, it's interesting to have you here.

Thank you.

You know, he was still famous.

And fame, infamy...

OJ, I was told not to ask you about the incident.

-Is there any reason why?

-What incident?

The incident with Nicole.

-Cos there's nothing to talk about any more.

-OK. Cos you were proven innocent...

Because I was innocent, I was proven innocent,

-and once we open that we're back into the...

-Yeah.

It's, what, seven years now?

-It's over and over and over...

-Yeah.

-..you know?

I mean, life goes on.

We talk about OJ as though

the story is OJ.

So, when you travel and when you're walking

down the street and things like that,

what type of reaction do you get from people?

The story is OJ and us.

-The exact reaction, maybe a little more emotional...

-OK.

..than I got 15 years ago.

If you took a walk with me down the street,

you'd be amazed. I don't care where I go, white, black, wherever I go,

everybody's terrific.

The different people, watching their reactions

was quite amazing.

That's why I played football. I won...

Hey, you stay gorgeous.

-Precious.

-Precious? Spell it for me.

Oh, my, God, it's really OJ Simpson.

In our town. He's really here.

He was addicted to fame.

And the reality is, the music didn't stop.

Where do you want to do this?

I don't know, you're good with the white women, not all black women.

Hey, I'm good with the sisters, too, baby.

If you didn't already have a kid and a man

-out there that's bigger than me...

-Oh, please, OJ.

-I've got a hair weave.

-Oh, you're here. See, he's in here.

Forget what I just said.

But you know what, OJ? Not for nothing,

good black don't crack and you certainly do look good.

You want to catch yourself, right?

I don't know, OJ.

I don't know.

Something takes over when you're in his presence.

He's taking you away

from the sordid dark reality,

but you're sitting across from somebody

who probably committed murder.

OJ, I don't know what I...

I see you enjoying it. I see you enjoying it, baby. Talk to me!

Because I got truth on my side.

All that goes away and there's just a sense

of wanting to believe him and go with him

to this place where everything is still OK.

The truly righteous are not the self-righteous,

just remember that. I read that in the Koran.

OJ, I want to say I don't like you, I can't stand you.

I want to call you names, I want to throw you right out of here,

but you know what?

Your husband's watching, you better watch.

You've done it to me. Can I invite you to a party?

Sure, I'll be there.

His friends would call it the OJ effect.

They would say, "Yeah, you got OJed."

Being OJed is being charmed.

The confusion that you feel after you've been in his presence.

I don't think he was not guilty,

but I was in touch with the fact that I wanted

to think he was not guilty.

OJ, damn you, I like you.

-Thank you.

-Damn you!

Damn you!

Damn you.

No!

Oh, my gosh, he hugged me!

Damn you, OJ. Damn you, OJ Simpson, you're charming.

Well, thank you.

He can get into your head.

And you'll like him.

There's no way around it.

I didn't know OJ the murderer.

I was in jail at the time when the thing happened.

I remember OJ the hero.

Playing football as a ten-year-old,

saying "I'm OJ Simpson", running with the ball.

I remember OJ the charming movie guy.

Police! Throw down your guns!

The mega-hero growing up.

OJ crashed the national baseball card show in Chicago,

and was sitting at a table signing autographs,

and there was a line around the aisle for him

until the promoters came and threw him out.

He was charging, I think, 150 an autograph.

So, that's what made me think, you know,

"Hey. This could be worth it."

We'd hire him to sign 200 autographs.

What do you got there, you got another 80 items?

You know, put the TV on the USC game and I'll take care of them.

I liked the guy.

Public appearances, he'd get 50 to 100 grand.

It was a matter of him hiding from the Goldmans.

He had a team of people to make sure that any money

he could get was going to be protected.

They would form some phoney company

and funnel the money through that.

Then he moved to Florida.

His home suddenly became untouchable.

His pension was untouchable already, by law.

South Beach, Miami.

Nobody judges you there.

Nobody said "murderer".

They just wanted to touch him.

So, he was living large.

Living large.

You rolling?

NEWS INTRO MUSIC

Right now, OJ Simpson

is a fugitive of justice.

OJ Simpson, football legend, has just become

the prime suspect in a double murder.

'Oh, God, Florida was just like a nightmare.'

I hate everything about Florida,

everything that's happened in Florida.

# In the trial of the century

# Lies a hero's destiny

# Tell me, OJ, what's it going to be?

# Every man wants to be made

# In the trial of the century

# Lies a hero's destiny... #

That's my drink. Whose drink is this?

-That's yours.

-That's yours up there.

-Motherfucker.

That motherfucker had the nerve...

In Florida, his group of friends

was much different.

Did you get that set up?

We gotta get some more money out of them.

Week before Christmas.

They weren't the Lynn Swanns and the Rosey Griers.

Yo, fucking with our game, man.

He hung around with anybody that was more thuggish.

-The lower people.

-'Why don't y'all put the camera down?'

But to the lower people, he was like the Godfather.

You fucking with our golf game, OK?

We out here to have a good time and you're fucking with our game.

Because of that, his head grew.

When OJ crossed over into the dark side,

I guess that's probably where I came in at, you know?

Cos I'm no celebrity.

I'm no football star or baseball star, you know.

I was a regular guy, but he seemed to like me.

I started liking to hang out with OJ because of the perks.

We went to strip clubs, went to nightclubs.

We'd drink and check out the girls,

and there was always an ample amount of women around.

He said, "You know what's crazy is I'm getting more girls now.

"Now I got bad-boy image and I was never a bad boy."

"I have to wonder, 'What are they thinking?'

"because I was accused of murdering my wife."

Since I've been in Miami, I've gone out with a Cuban girl,

a Venezuelan girl and a white girl.

You only see the white girl in the media,

and they all look like Nicole from what they say.

At the time I started chronicling him,

he was involved with his girlfriend, Christie Prody,

and the first time I saw her drive in in a convertible...

I know, baby.

..I did a double take, because from a distance,

she looked like a spitting image of Nicole.

He's fine, he's fine.

I believe in this man.

He was going down,

and what I mean by that is he had no interest

in getting to either safer ground or higher ground,

if it existed.

He was going to go to, essentially, decadence.

LAUGHTER

They're talking about me, baby!

Christie Prody, the cocaine and then she'd get clean,

and then he couldn't get her coked up enough.

I asked him, "Why? You know she can't stop.

"You can do coke for a couple of days and then stop. She can't.

"She will keep doing coke."

I say, damn!

He said, "Yeah, but when she does this she gets me more girls

"than I get myself."

We gotta get some close-ups of the crotch.

Can't be pimpin' without some crotch shots.

The only crotch that matters around here, that crotch right there,

you understand what I'm talking about? Got to hide this here.

I gotta big sheet of paper here, so don't even worry about it.

You know, the public has to identify with an athlete.

You can be in awe of an athlete,

and there's many athletes out there

that you in awe of, but you want to feel a part of that person.

I think people view me as a certain way

and I don't want to let them down.

Are you any different than you were ten years ago?

20?

30?

I'm just the way I've always been.

I look at myself and think I'm a good guy.

I truly believe, in the most part,

that you get what you deserve in this world.

If you allow things to happen to you,

they will happen to you.

You think OJ's a good-looking guy?

If I liked guys, I'd do him.

Oh, God.

LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH

He would go in make-up and spoof people,

like "you've been Juiced" or whatever the hell it was.

Oranges from OJ.

OJ, right here.

C'mon, help the Juice, I'm kind of down and out.

It was like

going and seeing the two-headed cow at the circus or something.

The freak show.

# Why do people wonder about my intentions?

# Why do people ask me so many questions

# 'Bout how I made it to the top

# 'Bout all the times I made those defensive stops?

# See the only way I live my life is large

# And I got the most games with 200-plus yards. #

OJ said, "If 90% of America thinks I'm a killer,

-"who gives a

-BLEEP

-what else they think?"

I got Juiced!

And I said, "Well, what about your kids?"

Living your life like some 24-year-old

multimillionaire punk ass, hit every strip club you can,

have all the threesomes you can.

Don't care about what lives you're ruining,

what your kids are seeing, what they're experiencing.

You don't care.

Because it's all about you.

I finally walked away after the last time

I saw how he treated his kids.

And when I really started looking back on everything,

I said, "What in the hell did I do?"

And with somebody that I grew up admiring and idolising.

OJ may not have a conscience.

He may not pay for killing two people,

but I sure in the hell pay for helping him get away with it.

I pay.

New outrage tonight over OJ Simpson.

Simpson is trying to sell books,

and he's doing it in ways that have vividly revived

memories of the murders and his acquittal.

Judith Regan, a sort of powerhouse publisher,

told me about this project.

"It's OJ Simpson and we're going to try to get a confession."

How could I not do it?

They were willing to give him

700-plus thousand dollars...

as an advance.

At that point, he not only needed the money, but thought

in a while people would be less interested.

You know, on some level, he felt he was being forgotten.

Like the years had gone by.

Fame's a terrible beast.

You know, when you get a taste of that and people forget you,

it's very hard.

I needed to sit down with him and get his story,

and it was emotionally difficult for him.

He goes, "I'll tell you this.

"If I did it, I couldn't have done it alone."

So there was someone else there?

And he said, "There might have been."

And it was like he was playing this little game with me,

but it wasn't a particularly clever game.

Then he told me about the ride home, up the alley.

I assumed he made a right and stopped at the traffic light,

because I'd heard that somebody saw him.

He said, "No, no, I didn't stop at that traffic light.

"I went up the alley and took a left,

"and went up Gretna Green to San Vicente and on home."

And then he saw the look on my face.

He says, "That's the way I would have gone,

"you know, had I done it."

To me there was no doubt about it.

He wasn't making this stuff up.

I got there thinking he was a murderer,

and I left there more convinced than ever

that he was a murderer.

To give a voice to a murderer

is beyond imagination.

Everybody is more than willing to jump in

and play his game,

because it's money for him and then it was going to be

money for them.

Well, we wanted to put an end to it.

Disgusted by money for blood,

millions pressure publisher Rupert Murdoch,

who fires the executive in charge and kills the book.

As the largest debtor, we got the rights to the book.

So, we read it and we were shocked.

It was as close to the confession as you could ever get.

We made one change and one change only - the title of the book.

We took the word "if" and made it very small,

and laid it into the letter I.

So it was If I Did It.

We were hearing all over the place,

we were wrong for doing it.

But you know what? It was, "OK, so you think we're wrong. So what?"

It's all about money.

How much money is it going to take

to make you guys happy?

It's not going to bring Nicole or Ron back.

That book was inexplicable.

He was thinking, "I'm not going to say I did it,

"but I'm not going to not say I did it."

So, it's this whole kind of striptease that goes on,

and everybody's complicit in it.

Like any murder story, a few more twists.

But now, in a twist...

In a bizarre twist, the Goldman...

What I think I found most disturbing...

-OJ...

-OJ Simpson's...

-OJ Simpson...

-OJ Simpson...

..it's the audience and our appetite for that kind of stuff.

Unlike most murder stories, this one still lacks

the chapter everyone expects...

Justice.

Elvis, get your pelvis away from me.

The Vegas chapter is where everything just gets

so damn sordid.

I can't sit here and authoritatively tell you

what went down in Vegas,

because it's too convoluted.

Mike Gilbert had been pilfering OJ's stuff throughout.

You know, Mike's got his eye on the memorabilia,

the historical value, the money,

and OJ's just running.

That's what OJ does, right? He runs.

And in his wake, there's all this stuff,

and all these people are picking up the stuff.

I got a call. It was Al Beardsley.

He's this 6'6",

300lb OJ fanatic,

saying "Tom, I saw you on TV with the Anna Nicole Diaries.

"I got something even better.

"I have all the stuff from OJ's trophy room.

"He didn't pay his bills - his agent stole them."

Beardsley told me that a majority of the stuff was in Vegas.

Called OJ,

OJ said, "Look, Tom, this is not memorabilia.

"These are personal artefacts

"that were stolen from me.

"My football that I was holding in my arms

"when I rushed for 2,000 yards.

"The ring from my wife who died,

"that I was going to give to my daughter."

He kept talking about a photo signed by J Edgar Hoover.

J Edgar Hoover said he was a big fan, a fine young man.

"Everyone thinks nothing bad happens to me.

"Here I am being robbed.

"Why don't we show the world that I have to go

"by myself to get my stuff back?"

He says, "I was invited to a wedding in Vegas.

"I can be in Vegas."

If I Did It was due to be released on the day of the wedding

that he was there.

So I said, "OJ, great.

"Sign 200 books for me."

He goes, "Fuck, no."

I go, "Dude, you're asking me to help you with this shit."

And he says, "I'm going to write on the books

" 'I didn't write this' and then I'll sign it OJ Simpson."

I said, "That's good enough for me. I'll take that."

A free inscription, too.