Poor old OJ Simpson. We expect that the only thing keeping him going throughout the If I Did It palaver and his recent arrest for armed robbery was his $125 fake Rolex – and now OJ Simpson hasn't even got that.
A judge has ordered OJ Simpson to turn over his Rolex watch, videogame royalties and any 'stolen' memorabilia that OJ can prove he owns to the family of murdered Ron Goldman as part of the $33.5 million in damages that OJ Simpson was ordered to pay in his infamous civil case. The only thing is that OJ Simpson's watch isn't the $22,000 Rolex Submariner that the Goldmans think it is, but a $125 counterfeit that Simpson must've picked up on the street somewhere. This is bad news all round – the Goldmans are a lot further from getting their $33.5 million than they thought, OJ Simpson will have to pay off his debt to the Goldmans for a lot longer than he thought and we'll have to keep writing about OJ Simpson's various assets for longer than we thought.
Really, we're the ones coming off worst out of this.
Right now OJ Simpson is in a no-win scenario. The OJ Simpson armed robbery arrest and subsequent 10 felony charges mean that, if convicted, OJ may have to spend the rest of his life in jail. But if OJ Simpson isn't convicted, he'll have to spend the rest of his life forking over just about every penny and material asset he earns to the family of murder victim Ron Goldman. Neither one's an attractive proposition, especially for a kindly old soul like OJ Simpson who just wants to scrape together some money by occasionally writing books detailing his fictional involvement in the bloody real-life murders of women he used to be married to and/or charging into hotel rooms with a gang of gun-toting men screaming "You think you can steal my shit?" like some kind of demented foul-mouthed recently toilet-trained toddler who hasn't learnt about the sewerage system in full yet.
Perhaps, looking at things objectively, jail might be the best thing for OJ Simpson. The way things stand now, the Goldman family are making money off all of his assets – be it royalties from the sale of If I Did It and any of OJ Simpson's shit that guy thought he could steal – but if he was imprisoned, what could OJ Simpson possibly have to give them? A rusty piss-bucket and a sharpened toothbrush that doubles as a stabbing device? Surely that'd be better than now, where not even dodgy knock-off watches that OJ Simpson buys are safe from The Goldmans. The Associated Press reports:
O.J. Simpson was minus one Rolex watch — real or otherwise — Tuesday after a judge ordered him to hand it and other assets over to the father of slaying victim Ron Goldman… In an interview, [Simpson's lawyer Ronald] Slates questioned whether it was a real Rolex. "Know any Rolex watches that sell for 125 bucks?" Slates asked, adding that's what Simpson told him he paid for the timepiece. The lawyer acknowledged that if it is fake, however, "it's a pretty good copy."
Whether the Rolex is a fake or not will apparently be decided today after it's taken to a jewellers for valuation. But it's not just the watch that OJ Simpson has had to turn over to the Goldmans. Along with any sports memorabilia from the robbery that's found to belong to him, the Goldmans will also get any future royalties that OJ Simpson makes from licensing his image out to a videogame – presumably an American Football game and not a game entitled Disturbing Hobbies Of American Sports Stars featuring OJ Simpson and Michael Vick, although that game would obviously rule.
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Justin says
I thought fake Rolex watches go for $10 in midtown? ;)