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Main Page Police Say O.J. Simpson Questioned In Robbery
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Posted by: kwflatbed

LAS VEGAS -- Metro police confirmed early Friday morning that O.J. Simpson is being investigated for robbery at the Palace Station Casino.
The incident happened late Thursday night, police said.
The Palace Station complex, located near the Vegas strip, includes a 430-room Courtyard Hotel and a 21-story hotel tower with 500 rooms and suites. The casino is open around the clock. It is not clear whether the incident happened in a guest room or inside the casino.
Simpson is not in police custody; however he was being questioned early Friday morning about the incident.
A news conference will be held later Friday morning.

Keep up with the latest on this breaking news story on FOX5 and KVVU.com.

http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/14112984/detail.html

Posted by: kwflatbed

Suspect Arrested in O.J. Simpson Las Vegas Hotel Robbery Case

LAS VEGAS — A suspect believed to have accompanied O.J. Simpson during an alleged armed robbery of a Las Vegas hotel room was arrested by Las Vegas police Saturday, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported Sunday.
According to the Review Journal, charges against the man, who police questioned Saturday, include conspiracy to commit robbery.
The man's name was withheld, but sources told the Review Journal that it was not Simpson.
Meanwhile, the sports memorabilia collector who accused Simpson of the robbery said Saturday that he was "on O.J.'s side" and wanted the case dropped.
"I want this thing to go away. I have health problems," said Alfred Beardsley, the collector who told police on Thursday that Simpson and several other men stormed a Las Vegas hotel room and stole memorabilia at gunpoint.

Click here to read the FOX411: Author Says He Was Told O.J. Book Was Confession

Click here to read Part 2 of today's FOX411: Book Shows How O.J. Killed, or Didn't Kill, Nicole and Ron

Beardsley, of Burbank, Calif., indicated Saturday that he was not interested in pursuing the case.
"I have no desire to fly back and forth to Las Vegas to prosecute this," he told The Associated Press. "How are they going to have a witness who's on O.J.'s side?"
Beardsley said he called police only because the items were valuable and if he had not reported them as stolen he would be "held accountable for all the stuff."
Police could not immediately be reached for comment on whether Beardsley's apparent change of heart would affect the investigation.
Earlier, Las Vegas police said they were questioning one of the three or four men who was thought to have accompanied Simpson to the hotel room. No arrests had been made and police were still trying to determine what took place before Simpson left the room with memorabilia he says was stolen from him, Lt. Clint Nichols said. Police think a weapon was involved and they want to review hotel surveillance tapes to help sort it out.
That will include unraveling the contorted relationships between the erstwhile athlete and a cadre of collectors that has profited from his infamy since he was found liable in the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
At least one of the men considered Simpson a close friend. One had been his licensing agent. Another had collected Simpson items for years.
But times have changed.
In a Saturday phone interview with AP, Simpson declared: "None of these guys are friends of mine."
Beardsley was once a Simpson defender and ally but had recently appeared "sympathetic" with the families of people Simpson was accused of killing, an attorney for the family of Ron Goldman said.
Another sports collector, Bruce Fromong, once testified for the defense in the civil trial brought by the families of Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. Now Fromong says Simpson robbed him, along with Beardsley, at gunpoint in the room at the Palace Station casino.
Simpson, 60, said he was just trying to retrieve memorabilia, particularly photos of his wife and children. There were no guns, he told The Associated Press. There was no break-in, he said.
The man Simpson accused of stealing the items from him is Mike Gilbert, another one-time associate. As Simpson's licensing agent in the late 1990s, Gilbert admitted snatching Simpson's Heisman Trophy and other items from his client's Brentwood home as payment for money he said was owed to him. He later turned the items over to authorities, save the trophy's nameplate.
Gilbert swore he'd go to jail before turning the nameplate over to the Goldman family, which was trying to collect on the $33.5 million civil judgment won against Simpson. Gilbert later surrendered it under court order.
He apparently remained tight with his client through the ordeal.
"It has absolutely not affected our relationship at all," Gilbert said in October 1997.
Since then, according to Simpson, their relationship has changed. Simpson told AP he believes Gilbert stole items from a storage locker once held in Simpson's mother's name.
Attempts to reach Gilbert by phone were unsuccessful.
Simpson, who lives in Miami, said he expected to find the stolen items when he went to an arranged meeting Thursday.
The man who arranged the meeting, according to Simpson, was another man who makes a living on the fringes of the celebrity.
Thomas Riccio, a well-known memorabilia dealer, made headlines when his auction house, Corona, Calif.-based Universal Rarities, handled the eBay auction of Anna Nicole Smith's handwritten diaries.
Simpson said Riccio called him several weeks ago to inform him that people "have a lot of your stuff and they don't want anyone to know they are selling it," Simpson said.
Along with the personal photos, Simpson expected to find one item in particular: the suit he was wearing when he was acquitted of murder charges in 1995.
It's not clear where they got the suit, but Beardsley, a former real estate agent and longtime Simpson collector, and Fromong had been trying to sell it for several months. They'd recently tried eBay and the celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com.
Goldman family attorney David Cook said Beardsley called him several times with the hopes of arranging a deal.
"When I spoke with him, my impression was that he was very sympathetic to the Goldmans," Cook said.
That's not the position Beardsley, who once tried to arrange lucrative autograph signings for Simpson, took in 1999, before a major auction of Simpson's sports collectibles, including his Heisman.
"It bothers me that I'm putting money in the Goldman and Brown pockets," Beardsley told the AP. "I believe he's not responsible for this crime, and I think there are a lot of people who believe that."
It was perhaps such statements that made it hard for Simpson to believe that Beardsley and Fromong were now attempting to profit off his personal items, which he says include the wedding video from Simpson's first marriage.
In an interview with TMZ.com, Beardsley noted that during the alleged robbery in the hotel room Simpson appeared surprised the pair were the ones selling the items.
"Simpson was saying that 'I liked you, I thought you were a good guy,"' Beardsley said.
Very quickly the relationship between the collectors and the celebrity were shifting once again. On Saturday, Beardsley said he had spoken with Simpson since the incident. He called to apologize, Beardsley said.
As questions swirled around the curious cast of characters and their tumultuous meeting, media scrutiny and public interest that has dogged the fallen athlete was in full swing.
By Saturday afternoon, Simpson's new book, "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer," was the top seller on Amazon.com.
None of the men will profit from the book's sales. After a deal for Simpson to publish it fell through, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family.
Las Vegas police say they're interviewing another possible suspect in the robbery investigation involving O.J. Simpson.
Police Lieutenant Clint Nichols says the man is believed to be an associate of Simpson's who was voluntarily undergoing questioning Saturday.
No arrests have been made.
Police believe the man was part of a group that accompanied Simpson into a hotel room at the Palace Station casino on Thursday night.
Two sports memorabilia collectors are accusing Simpson and the men of busting into the room and stealing collectibles at gunpoint.
Simpson denies weapons were involved. He says the items rightfully belong to him.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296948,00.html

Posted by: Inspector

OJ ARRESTED:

LAS VEGAS -- Police in Las Vegas arrested former football star O.J. Simpson on Sunday in connection with an alleged armed robbery last week.Las Vegas police said officers have seized two firearms and arrested another man in connection with the incident, which involved sports memorabilia featuring Simpson.Simpson has said the items belonged to him, and police questioned him earlier in their investigation. The other man detained Saturday night was arrested on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglarly with a deadly weapon, Nichols said. Two firearms were seized. He was not identified. Nichols said police were seeking other suspects. "There may be as many as five outstanding (suspects)," he said, confirming that Simpson was among those five. Police executed two search warrants early Sunday morning on private residences, Nichols said. The weapons and other evidence were seized at the first location. "It was evidence of a crime that was committed," Nichols said. "And I believe we recovered some clothing that the individual was wearing in the commission of the robbery." The man is accused of being among a group of people that went to the room of memorabilia dealers at the Palace Station casino-hotel on Thursday and seized items. Simpson told The Associated Press on Saturday that he did he did not even consider calling the police to help reclaim personal items he believed were stolen from him, because he has found the police unresponsive when he needed help ever since his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, were killed in 1994. "The police, since my trouble, have not worked out for me," he said, noting that whenever he has called the police "It just becomes a story about O.J." "I'm at the point where I don't rely on the police and this is not a police issue anyway," he said, expressing hope that it will soon be resolved. Simpson, 60, said he was just trying to retrieve memorabilia, particularly photos of his wife and children. There were no guns and no break-in, he said. As police try to determine what happened in the hotel room, they must unravel the contorted relationships between the erstwhile athlete and a cadre of collectors that has profited from his infamy since the slayings of his ex-wife and Goldman. He was acquitted of murder in 1995, but was found liable for their deaths in a civil case.The latest developments in the case came as Simpson's accuser said he wanted the case dropped and was on "on O.J.'s side." "I want this thing to go away. I have health problems," said Alfred Beardsley, the collector who told police on Thursday that Simpson and several other men stormed a Las Vegas hotel room and stole memorabilia at gunpoint. Beardsley, of Burbank, Calif., indicated Saturday that he was not interested in pursuing the case. "I have no desire to fly back and forth to Las Vegas to prosecute this," he told The Associated Press. "How are they going to have a witness who's on O.J.'s side?" Beardsley said he called police only because the items were valuable and if he had not reported them as stolen he would be "held accountable for all the stuff." Police said they had been in touch with Beardsley, who had not formally withdrawn his complaint. Even if he does, "we still have a responsibility to investigate. He was not the only victim," Nichols said. Another collector in the room, Bruce Fromong, had not indicated that he wants to drop the complaint. At least one of the men considered Simpson a close friend. One had been his licensing agent. Another had collected Simpson items for years. But times have changed. In a Saturday phone interview with AP, Simpson declared: "None of these guys are friends of mine." Beardsley was once a Simpson defender and ally but had recently appeared "sympathetic" with the families of people Simpson was accused of killing, an attorney for the family of Ron Goldman said. Fromong, once testified for the defense in the civil trial brought by the families of Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. Now Fromong says Simpson robbed him, along with Beardsley, at gunpoint in the room at the Palace Station casino. Simpson, 60, said he was just trying to retrieve memorabilia, particularly photos of his wife and children. There were no guns, he told The Associated Press. There was no break-in, he said. The man Simpson accused of stealing the items from him is Mike Gilbert, another one-time associate. As Simpson's licensing agent in the late 1990s, Gilbert admitted snatching Simpson's Heisman Trophy and other items from his client's Brentwood home as payment for money he said was owed to him. He later turned the items over to authorities, save the trophy's nameplate. Gilbert swore he'd go to jail before turning the nameplate over to the Goldman family, which was trying to collect on the $33.5 million civil judgment won against Simpson. Gilbert later surrendered it under court order. He apparently remained tight with his client through the ordeal. "It has absolutely not affected our relationship at all," Gilbert said in October 1997. Since then, according to Simpson, their relationship has changed. Simpson told AP he believes Gilbert stole items from a storage locker once held in Simpson's mother's name. Attempts to reach Gilbert by phone were unsuccessful. Simpson, who lives in Miami, said he expected to find the stolen items when he went to an arranged meeting Thursday. The man who arranged the meeting, according to Simpson, was another man who makes a living on the fringes of the celebrity. Thomas Riccio, a well-known memorabilia dealer, made headlines when his auction house, Corona, Calif.-based Universal Rarities, handled the eBay auction of Anna Nicole Smith's handwritten diaries. Simpson said Riccio called him several weeks ago to inform him that people "have a lot of your stuff and they don't want anyone to know they are selling it," Simpson said. Along with the personal photos, Simpson expected to find one item in particular: the suit he was wearing when he was acquitted of murder charges in 1995. It's not clear where they got the suit, but Beardsley, a former real estate agent and longtime Simpson collector, and Fromong had been trying to sell it for several months. They'd recently tried eBay and the celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com. Goldman family attorney David Cook said Beardsley called him several times with the hopes of arranging a deal. "When I spoke with him, my impression was that he was very sympathetic to the Goldmans," Cook said. That's not the position Beardsley, who once tried to arrange lucrative autograph signings for Simpson, took in 1999, before a major auction of Simpson's sports collectibles, including his Heisman. "It bothers me that I'm putting money in the Goldman and Brown pockets," Beardsley told the AP. "I believe he's not responsible for this crime, and I think there are a lot of people who believe that." It was perhaps such statements that made it hard for Simpson to believe that Beardsley and Fromong were now attempting to profit off his personal items, which he says include the wedding video from Simpson's first marriage. In an interview with TMZ.com, Beardsley noted that during the alleged robbery in the hotel room Simpson appeared surprised the pair were the ones selling the items. "Simpson was saying that 'I liked you, I thought you were a good guy,"' Beardsley said. Very quickly the relationship between the collectors and the celebrity were shifting once again. On Saturday, Beardsley said he had spoken with Simpson since the incident. He called to apologize, Beardsley said. As questions swirled around the curious cast of characters and their tumultuous meeting, media scrutiny and public interest that has dogged the fallen athlete was in full swing. By Saturday afternoon, Simpson's new book, "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer," was the top seller on Amazon.com. None of the men will profit from the book's sales. After a deal for Simpson to publish it fell through, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family.

Posted by: Barbrady

Glad to hear that. Maybe someone will shank him.

Posted by: Inspector

Simpson was arrested shortly after 11 a.m., Capt. James Dillon said.

The charges against Simpson will include robbery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary with a firearm, all felonies,More charges could be brought against him, police said.

Posted by: Delta784

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inspector

Simpson was arrested shortly after 11 a.m., Capt. James Dillon said.

The charges against Simpson will include robbery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary with a firearm, all felonies,More charges could be brought against him, police said.

Hopefully the jury will have half a brain this time.

Posted by: kwflatbed

O.J. Simpson ordered held without bail

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago

LAS VEGAS - O.J. Simpson's arrest may be the start of a new legal odyssey for the fallen football star, one that could reopen the possibility of prison time more than a decade after his acquittal on murder charges.
Police arrested Simpson on Sunday, saying he was part of an armed group that burst into a Las Vegas hotel room and snatched memorabilia that documented his storied career.
Simpson said it was merely a confrontation with no guns. He said autographed sports collectibles, his Hall of Fame certificate, a photograph with former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and video from his first wedding were all his, and that they were stolen from him and were about to be fenced by unethical collectors.
Police said they were not sure who owned the memorabilia. But they say the manner in which the goods were taken was under investigation.
"Whether or not the property belonged to Mr. Simpson or not is still in debate," Lt. Clint Nichols said Sunday. "Having said that, the manner in which this property was taken, we have a responsibility to look into that, irregardless of who the property belonged to."
After being whisked away in handcuffs, Simpson was booked at the county jail Sunday night on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and conspiracy to commit a crime and burglary with a firearm, police said.
The district attorney said he expected Simpson to ultimately be charged with seven felonies and one gross misdemeanor.
If convicted of the booking charges, Simpson would face up to 30 years in state prison on each robbery count alone.
A judge ordered Simpson be held without bail, Sgt. John Loretto said. A court date was set for Thursday.
Simpson attorney Yale Galanter told The Associated Press late Sunday that he would fight the charges vigorously.
"We believe it is an extremely defensible case based on conflicting witness statements, flip-flopping by witnesses and witnesses making deals with the government to flip," Galanter said.
Simpson was taken away from The Palms hotel-casino by plainclothes officers around 11 a.m. Sunday, a day after the arrest of a golfing buddy who police say accompanied him with a gun in the Thursday night holdup. Handcuffed and wearing a golf shirt and jeans, Simpson was placed in an SUV.
"He was very cooperative, there were no issues," Capt. James Dillon said.
Simpson, 60, told The Associated Press that he did not call the police to help reclaim the items because he has found the police unresponsive to him ever since his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, were slain in 1994.
"The police, since my trouble, have not worked out for me," he said, noting that whenever he has called the police "It just becomes a story about O.J."
Police did not allege that Simpson carried a weapon in the incident.
"We don't have any information to lead us to believe he was armed even based on those charges," Nichols said.

Police said they seized two firearms involved in the robbery along with sports memorabilia, mostly signed by Simpson. They also said they recovered collectible baseballs and Joe Montana cleats at private residences early Sunday after serving three search warrants.
Walter Alexander, 46, of Mesa, Ariz., was arrested Saturday night on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary with a deadly weapon. Alexander, who was described as one of Simpson's golfing buddies, was released without bail Saturday night.
"Walter was one of the two subjects who had a gun," Dillon said.
Robert Dennis Rentzer, a Los Angeles lawyer representing Alexander, said he was able to arrange his client's release from custody, but wasn't familiar with the allegations.
Police are seeking four other men: Las Vegas residents Clarence Stewart, 53, and Michael McClinton, 49; Tom Scotto, of unknown age and hometown, and another man who was not identified.
Simpson, a Heisman Trophy winner, ex-NFL star and actor, lives near Miami and has been a tabloid staple since his ex-wife and Goldman were killed. Simpson was acquitted of murder charges, but a jury later held him liable for the killings in a wrongful death civil suit. He was ordered to pay $33.5 million.
Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, welcomed the possibility that Simpson could go to prison.
"He's believed for years, decades, that he's entitled to do anything he wants, and the legal system and society has basically agreed with him," Goldman said. "This time, hopefully, he'll get what he deserves. He'll get jail time."
Simpson said auction house owner Tom Riccio called him several weeks ago to say some collectors were selling some of his items. Riccio set up a meeting with collectors under the guise that he had a private collector interested in buying Simpson's items.
Simpson said he was accompanied by men he met at a wedding cocktail party, and they took the collectibles.
"It's like a bad dream," said Alfred Beardsley, one of the memorabilia collectors who was in the hotel room. "I'm sad that O.J. is in custody."
Beardsley said he blames the whole thing on Riccio, who he claims told Simpson that his property was in the room in Las Vegas.
"If they don't charge Riccio I will be very upset. That guy lied to O.J. and got him all pumped up," he said.
Beardsley said the people that should be blamed are Riccio and Mike Gilbert, the former Simpson agent who he alleged stole memorabilia from Simpson.
Simpson's arrest came just days after the Goldman family published a book that Simpson had written under the title, "If I Did It" about how he would have committed the killings of his ex-wife and Goldman had he actually done it.
After a deal for Simpson to publish it fell through, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family, who retitled it "If I Did It: The Confessions of the Killer." During the weekend, the book was the hottest seller in the country, hitting No. 1 on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. ___

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070917/...son_questioned

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