‘Very selfish’: O.J. Simpson’s attorney alleges his son improperly claimed dad’s Vegas home

The special administrator of O.J. Simpson’s estate filed a lawsuit earlier this month alleging that Simpson’s son has improperly claimed ownership of his father’s home.

Simpson, the football star who was acquitted of killing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, was 76 when he died April 10 from prostate cancer at his house in Las Vegas.

In August 2022, an LLC called Primary Holdings paid $795,000 for a three-bedroom, 2,900-square-foot house at 341 Arbour Garden Ave., according to Clark County records and the lawsuit, filed in Clark County District Court on Jan. 6 by attorneys for special administrator Malcolm LaVergne, who was Simpson’s longtime attorney.

“He always told me this is his forever home,” said LaVergne, who thinks the property is worth nearly $1 million. “O.J., his friends, everybody believed this to be O.J.’s home.”

The LLC is owned and managed by Simpson’s son, Justin Simpson, who is a real estate agent, but the LLC was actually “the owner in name only,” the complaint in the suit claimed.

O.J. Simpson was the “rightful” owner, LaVergne’s attorneys said in the lawsuit, and paid all the bills for the house, listed in county records as having a total taxable value of $675,066.

Justin Simpson, who has not filed a response to the lawsuit, did not respond to requests for comment. The suit is against the LLC, not him as an individual.

The house purchase was structured to “to protect (O.J. Simpson’s) financial interests while shielding the Arbour Garden Property from creditor claims,” according to court documents.

Simpson owed money to the IRS and to the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman, who were awarded a $33.5 million judgment against him by a jury in 1997. Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, has sought $117 million from the estate.

After Simpson died, his son moved into the house and claimed it through the LLC, the lawsuit alleged. LaVergne’s attorneys said in court filings that the LLC has refused to transfer the property to his father’s estate or repay the money O.J. Simpson invested in it.

“I think it’s because he’s very selfish,” LaVergne said of Justin Simpson living in the house. “And I think it was foolish of him to do that.”

Justin Simpson acted as buyer’s agent and received a commission for the purchase, the suit said.

In court documents, LaVergne’s attorneys alleged that Justin Simpson used his real estate knowledge “to convince his ailing father to have the Arbour Garden Property placed in an entity under JUSTIN’s exclusive control.”

The lawsuit requests that the court find that O.J. Simpson’s estate has title to the property or award damages.

It said the money for the house’s down payment came from O.J. Simpson and was “commingled with other funds and held for safekeeping by third-party intermediaries.” Justin Simpson, as manager of the LLC, then took out a $636,000 mortgage to help his father fund the purchase, according to the complaint, which said O.J. Simpson made the mortgage payments.

“Either Justin writes me a check for what was put down for the property and the increase in the value, the equity of it, which is probably now roughly about a quarter of a million dollars,” LaVergne said, “or he can title the property to me and let me figure out what to do with the property.”

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.