Table of Contents
To Debbie; my children, Michael, David, Chrissy, Luke, and Lindsay; and my granddaughter, Autumn
PROLOGUE
Sooner or later a man who wears two faces forgets which one is real.
PRIMAL FEAR
I am not interested in anybodys forgiveness, but I do want to tell the real story. I want you to know what happened, why it happened, and how it happened. I want you to see us as real people, no matter how you may judge us by the end of this book.
Before O.J. Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman on the night of June 12, 1994, we were all people you might have liked. We worked hard, kept our business affairs straight, kept discretions (in personal matters), and watched each others backs. There were four of us in the innermost O.J. circle: Skip Taft, Cathy Randa, Al Cowlings, and methe lawyer, the personal assistant, the best friend, and the agent. During the trial we were inseparable, but the pain and stress dissolved our bonds and now theres just a resigned silence.
We werent evil, stupid, or crazy, any of us. We knew O.J., we knew Nicole, we knew their dynamics, and we could see the evidence. But unlike you, we had a profound conflict: We loved him.
That does not change the bottom line.
He did it. Of that I am 100 percent certain. Maybe if we start there, you can relax a little, and not feel that anybody is trying to tell you two plus two does not equal four, that O.J. is innocent. Then maybe we can wind the film back to the beginning, and get it right this time.
Its been fourteen years since Nicole and Ron were murdered. For those of us on the inside, its been like living on the deck of a sinking ship caught in a typhoon. The storm never lets up; its never over. You think you can move on but you cant, because youre tied to this thing, and you cant get off. The reason nobody can get off is because the ghost of the story is still stalking us.
I believe O.J. came as close as he will ever come to publicly confessing last year, in his bizarre tell-all book If I Did It. But he couldnt go through with it. I see my book partly as the final chapter of his booka way to finish what he started.
We all live in fear of the whole truth being told, because once it is, everybodys ghosts start to come out. Let me put it this way: We are all guilty of something. Ill start with myselfI am guilty of a whole lot.
Several months ago I had a dream in which my grandmother, who helped raise me, who loved me probably more than anybody ever has, placed her hand on my leg and said, Michael, why are you crying? I told her I was crying because I was unhappy. She said, Michael, you are unhappy because you have gotten so far away from who you really are. I know who you really are. You need to return to being that boy that your grandfather and I knew and loved. Then you will be happy again.
I woke up sobbing, and cried for a very long time. That was the turning pointwhen I decided never to try to get back to the privileged life, the VIP treatment, or any of it. I decided to write this book and not worry about how I might come across. I decided to just tell the story as honestly as possible.
But you have to take the whole journey with me, not just tune in when the saga began for the rest of the country, on the morning of June 13, 1994. While the public was watching this unfold, we were actually living it. Its very easy to sit in front of your TV screen and thunder about right and wrong. Its another matter altogether when your friend, your client, your heroor in my case, all threeis on trial for murder.
It wasnt until two years ago that I finally broke ties with O.J. altogether and told him never to call me again. I was through. I always said, and this shocks people, that I could forgive him the murdersI really could. Why? Because it was the worst night of his life. Because everything that night happened in the blink of an eye, and its that blink that nobody can comprehendnot even O.J. How can we judge him, finally, if we dont know what happened in the fateful, dreadful blink of a moment? I tried not to, all these years. I do judge him now, however, based on everything that happened after thatthe choices he has made since.
I wouldnt have thought this was true, but I have come to realize that the worst possible punishment for a man is not to be given a chance to atone for his sins.
Atonement for sin is partly a necessary act of catharsisnot just a merciful onebecause otherwise the guilty are retried and rehanged every single day of their lives. But how could we forgive him for a crime he would not admit he committed? Instead we all became trapped in limbo, year in and year out, trying, and failing, to find a place on earth that was not tainted by it, where the truth didnt reach. In the void created by O.J.s denial, an industry sprang up that would give us all a chance to find our right price, to choose how exactly we would compromise ourselves. We all had something to sell: some piece of the story, some piece of the lie, or some piece of the truth. Even O.J. became a participant in the end.
This entire saga is an extended act of role-playing, masking, posturing, and sellingselling trinkets of easy morality and quick salvation. What I hope is different about this book is that it contains firsthand experiences, and I have not altered them to make myself appear better than I was or am.
Speaking of selling, I should tell you straight off that my loyalty to O.J. was not purely emotional or personalit was also professional. We continued doing the business wed done before the murdersprimarily the business of sports memorabilia, of signing items and selling themall the way up until my final break with him, two years ago. We did this throughout his incarceration, up until the day of the verdict. This is how and why I wound up spending virtually every day with O.J., in jail, during the so-called trial of the century.
I never lied to him, never told him I didnt think he did it. Over time, I became more and more disillusioned with him, and disgusted with myself, for all the lies I told for him, for everything I did to help him hide, move, and lie about his most valuable possessions, to hide his assets, to shelter his money. I found myself, pretty soon, outside of society, living in a twilight world, where truth was always negotiable, but where there was absolutely no peace of mind.
I once screamed at him: You bastard, I hope you committed this crime because if you didnt, then all of our lives have been ruined for nothing!
But I know he did it. He told me as much. But Ill return to that later.
You are wondering why I decided to write this book now, and if it is all about cashing in.
Nothing is all about anything. I wasnt ready before. I was still working for O.J. and I was still an apologist for him, for myself, for all the positions wed taken over the years, and for the decisions wed made. And always in the back of my mind was that I didnt want to hurt the people this may hurt. For me, the decisions we made were rooted in my enslavement to O.J.s charm and charisma, and in wanting to turn back, mediate, and negotiate with the elephant in the room: the murders. I was in denial and I was hooked in by choices I made from day one, the day of the blast, June 12.
Now Im not.
