Almost 30 years ago, over 100 million people tuned in to watch the live telecast of the verdict in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. The former football star had been charged with the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. After a nine-month jury trial, Mr. Simpson was acquitted, though questions about the verdict and the crime never went away.
Here is what happened to the key figures from the trial.
F. Lee Bailey
Mr. Bailey was a member of Mr. Simpson’s legal team and had gained fame before that for representing Patricia Hearst and the man suspected of being the Boston Strangler. His cross-examination of Detective Mark Fuhrman was considered a key to Mr. Simpson’s acquittal. After the trial, in 1996, Mr. Bailey was held in contempt in Florida for refusing to surrender fees taken for defending a drug trafficker as well as stock left with him by his imprisoned client.
After 43 days in jail, he surrendered stock worth millions and was released. In 2001, Florida’s Supreme Court disbarred him for misappropriating the stock, and Massachusetts did the same two years later.
In 2016, Mr. Bailey filed for bankruptcy in Maine. Near the end of his life, he ran a business consulting firm out of an apartment above a hair salon owned by his girlfriend. He died in 2021 at 87.
Denise Brown
