OJ Simpson has been cremated, estate attorney says. No public memorial is planned
By KEN RITTER
LAS VEGAS — Former football star and celebrity criminal defendant O.J. Simpson was cremated Wednesday, the lawyer handling his estate said following his death last week at home in Las Vegas at age 76.
Attorney Malcolm LaVergne told The Associated Press he was present, along with unspecified other people, for the morning event at Palm Mortuary in downtown Las Vegas.
“I am able to verify that O.J. Simpson was cremated today,” LaVergne said shortly afterward. “Others were present, but I’m not disclosing who.” He declined to provide details of the process.
A telephone message for Palm Mortuary was not immediately returned.
FILE – In this May 14, 2013, file photo, O.J. Simpson sits during a break on the second day of an evidentiary hearing in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ethan Miller, Pool, File)
FILE – In this Sept. 16, 2007 file photo, O.J. Simpson is taken from the Las Vegas Police Investigative Services Division in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
FILE – Buffalo Bills running back O.J. Simpson (32) has his jersey pulled by Baltimore Colts linebacker Mike Curtis, during the second quarter of an NFL football game in Baltimore, Md., Oct. 12, 1975. (AP Photo/File)
FILE – In this July, 20, 2017, file pool photo, former NFL football star O.J. Simpson appears with his attorney Malcolm LaVergne, left, during a parole hearing at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nev. LaVergne is the executor of the estate for the now-late Simpson, who died April 10, 2024, from prostate cancer. (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – In this June 21, 1995 file photo, O.J. Simpson holds up his hands before the jury after putting on a new pair of gloves similar to the infamous bloody gloves during his double-murder trial in Los Angeles. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (Vince Bucci/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE – In this June 21, 1995 file photo, O.J. Simpson holds up his hands before the jury after putting on a new pair of gloves similar to the infamous bloody gloves during his double-murder trial in Los Angeles. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (Vince Bucci/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE – In this Oct. 3, 1995 file photo, attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. holds O.J. Simpson as the not guilty verdict is read in a Los Angeles courtroom during his trial in Los Angeles. Defense attorneys F. Lee Bailey, left, Robert Kardashian look on. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – Former football player O.J. Simpson, right, clowns around with Los Angeles Rams running back Eric Dickerson in a San Francisco, Calif., hotel Dec. 14, 1984. O.J. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. Simpson’s attorney confirmed to TMZ he died Wednesday night, April 10, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
FILE – O.J. Simpson speaks to the media about being traded from the Buffalo Bills to the San Francisco 49ers as 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr. looks on during a press conference in San Francisco, March 24, 1978. O.J. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. Simpson’s attorney confirmed to TMZ he died Wednesday night, April 10, 2024, in Las Vegas.(AP Photo/Sal Veder, File)
FILE – In this Oct. 3, 1995, file photo, O.J. Simpson reacts as he is found not guilty in the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in Los Angeles. Defense attorneys F. Lee Bailey, left, and Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. stand with him. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – O.J. Simpson and his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, arrive for the opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in New York on Oct. 19, 1993. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (AP Photo/Paul Hurschmann, File)
FILE – In this June 15, 1995 file photo, O.J. Simpson, left, grimaces as he tries on one of the leather gloves prosecutors say he wore the night his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered in a Los Angeles courtroom. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (Sam Mircovich/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE – O.J. Simpson stands as he listens to Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell as she reads her decision to hold him over for trial on July 8, 1994, in connection with the June 12 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (AP Photo/Eric Draper, Pool, File)
FILE – O.J. Simpson bites his lip Friday, July 8, 1994, as he listens to Dr. Irwin L. Golden, a medical examiner, describe the extent of Nicole Simpson Brown’s wounds during testimony in Los Angeles Criminal Courts. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (AP Photo/Eric Draper, File)
FILE – In this June 17, 1994, file photo, a white Ford Bronco, driven by Al Cowlings carrying O.J. Simpson, is trailed by Los Angeles police cars as it travels on a freeway in Los Angeles. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (AP Photo/Joseph Villarin, File)
FILE – Southern Cal’s O.J. Simpson poses with the Heisman Trophy at New York’s Downtown Athletic Club, Dec. 5, 1968. O.J. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. Simpson’s attorney confirmed to TMZ he died Wednesday night, April 10, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/File)
FILE – Buffalo Bills runningback O.J. Simpson (32) runs over some teammates as he latches onto Joe DeLamielleurs (68) during an NFL football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Rich Stadium in Buffalo, N.Y., Sept. 3, 1977. Buccaneers Council Rudolph (78) follows at right. (AP Photo/File)
FILE – Buffalo Bills’ O.J. Simpson posed in 1969. O.J. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. Simpson’s attorney confirmed to TMZ he died Wednesday night, April 10, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/File)
FILE – In this 1977 file photo shows Buffalo Bills NFL Football player O.J. Simpson. (AP Photo, File)
LaVergne is handling Simpson’s trust and estate in Nevada state court. He said Simpson’s cremains will be given to Simpson’s children “to do with as they please, according to the wishes of their father.”
No public memorial was planned, the attorney said.
Simpson died April 10 after he was diagnosed last year with prostate cancer.
LaVergne said in a Tuesday interview that he visited Simpson just before Easter at the country club home where Simpson leased southwest of the Las Vegas Strip, and described Simpson as “awake, alert and chilling” sitting on a couch, drinking a beer and ”just catching up on the news.”
On April 5, a doctor told LaVergne that Simpson was “transitioning,” as the attorney described it, and by last week Simpson only had strength to ask for water and to choose to watch a TV golf tournament instead of a tennis match.
A post on April 11 from Simpson’s family on X, formerly Twitter, said Simpson “succumbed to his battle with cancer.” It asked on their behalf for “privacy and grace.”
“You have to remember that they’ve shared O.J. with the world their entire lives,” LaVergne said Tuesday of Simpson’s surviving adult children of his first marriage — Arnelle Simpson, now 55, and Jason Simpson, 53 — and the children Simpson had with ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson before she was killed in 1994: Sydney Simpson, 38, and Justin Simpson, 35. “And they have the added burden that he is one of the most famous people on the planet, and who is polarizing and who is surrounded by controversy.”
Simpson’s children are the only beneficiaries of his estate, LaVergne said, adding he is now working to determine the value of Simpson’s assets. He said Tuesday that Simpson did not own a home in states where he had lived — including Nevada, California and Florida.
Simpson was a record-setting football star during 11 years as a running back in the NFL and became a movie actor, sportscaster and television advertising pitchman before he was famously acquitted of criminal charges alleging he stabbed his ex-wife and her friend, Ronald Goldman, to death in 1994 in Los Angeles. The proceedings in California in 1996 became known as the “trial of the century.”
Simpson was found liable for the deaths in 1997 by a separate California civil court jury and was ordered to pay the families of Simpson’s slain ex-wife and Goldman $33.5 million in compensation. LaVergne acknowledged Simpson died without paying the bulk of that judgment.
In Las Vegas, Simpson went to prison in 2008 for nine years after being found guilty of armed robbery in a 2007 encounter at a casino-hotel with two collectibles dealers.
He was released from prison in October 2017 and lived a golf-and-country club lifestyle in Las Vegas — sometimes offering social media posts about sports and golf. His last message was on Feb. 11, when the NFL championship Super Bowl was played in Las Vegas. He did not attend the game.
Attorney David Cook, representing the Goldman family, said Tuesday he thought the civil judgment owed today, including unpaid interest, is more than $114 million. LaVergne he believed the amount was more than $200 million, and that Simpson’s assets won’t amount to that.
LaVergne said he intends invite representatives of the Goldman and Brown families to “view my homework” with the Simpson estate, ”with the caveat that if they believe something else is out there … they’re going to have to use their own attorneys, their own resources, to try and chase down that pot of gold.”