/ 9 November 2007

Sports dealer tells court OJ Simpson robbed him

A sports collector told a packed Las Vegas courtroom on Thursday that United States ”trial of the century” defendant O.J. Simpson stormed his hotel room with armed men in ”military invasion fashion” and stole dozens of items of memorabilia.

Bruce Fromong was the first witness in a hearing to determine whether the former National Football League star and two co-defendants will face trial on a dozen charges for what prosecutors say was an armed robbery on September 13.

Items stolen from Fromong’s room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas included memorabilia from Simpson’s own sporting career and murder trial.

Fromong (53) told the court he and another man, Alfred Beardsley, brought the memorabilia collection to the Palace Station believing a buyer wanted to see it — only to be confronted instead by a furious Simpson (60) and his cohorts.

”There was a lot of hollering and yelling and OJ was yelling, particularly at Alfred Beardsley, saying, ‘I thought you were a good guy, I thought you were my friend. You stole from me,”’ Fromong, a former memorabilia business partner of Simpson, told a courtroom packed with reporters.

”The first person in that I saw was a black gentleman that came towards me,” he said, indicating Simpson’s co-defendant, Clarence Stewart. ”A lot of other guys came in behind him. A second man came in with a drawn semi-automatic [weapon] which was pointed at me.”

Fromong said Simpson and his associates loaded dozens of items into a box and pillow cases and took them from the room. Fromong said he and Beardsley then called police.

‘Military invasion’

On cross-examination, Simpson defence attorney Gabriel Grasso questioned Fromong’s account, pointing out that he didn’t tell police during two initial interviews that anyone had pointed a gun at him.

”They came in in military invasion fashion,” Fromong responded.

Grasso also suggested the memorabilia had in fact been stolen from Simpson and that Fromong was trying to profit from the incident. Using an iPhone, Grasso displayed Fromong’s website for the court, which offers several items of memorabilia described as ”IDENTICAL to the one OJ stole from me!!!!!!”

Two of Simpson’s co-defendants in the case, Charles Cashmore and Walter Alexander, have pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for their cooperation. Michael McClinton has also agreed to enter a guilty plea.

Simpson and his two remaining co-defendants, Stewart and Charles Erlich, are charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, armed robbery and burglary and could face life in prison if convicted.

Security was tight for the hearing, with streets in front of the courthouse blocked off and reporters and members of the public made to go through searches by bomb-sniffing dogs.

Simpson, who parlayed his fame as an athlete into a career in Hollywood, was acquitted of the June 12 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman after the sensational ”trial of the century” that transfixed the United States and much of the world.

A civil court jury later found Simpson liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33,5-million in damages to the victims’ families, a judgement that remains largely unpaid. – Reuters