Essay 4464

Bizarre tale unfolding in The New York Times…

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Sports Memorabilia Dealer Implicates O.J. Simpson in Hotel Room Robbery

By STEVE FRIESS

O.J. Simpson, the former football star who was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, was under investigation Friday in what the police said might have been an armed robbery of sports memorabilia from a room at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino here.

Mr. Simpson denied that any crime had taken place. Instead, he told The Associated Press, he and some people he had met at a cocktail party staged a “sting operation” on Thursday night intended to retrieve memorabilia, including Mr. Simpson’s Hall of Fame certificate, from a dealer he said had stolen it.

Capt. James Dillon of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said that Mr. Simpson, 60, was cooperating with investigators and that charges, if any, would not come until at least Monday, after the Clark County district attorney’s office reviewed the case. The investigation “is in its infancy,” Captain Dillon said.

Captain Dillon would not describe the items involved other than to characterize them as “sports-related products.” Some, he said, were in police custody.

The dealer, Alfred Beardsley of Glendale, Calif., told detectives that Mr. Simpson and four other men, including two with guns, entered his room at the Palace Station around 8 p.m. Thursday and left with a trove of memorabilia including photographs and books signed by Mr. Simpson, lithographs of the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana and Mr. Beardsley’s cellphone.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Mr. Beardsley told TMZ.com. “For him to come and do this sort of thing, I don’t know what’s wrong with O.J.”

Mr. Simpson gave a different account. He told The Associated Press that he and his acquaintances from the cocktail party went to Mr. Beardsley’s room pretending to be interested in buying the suit Mr. Simpson wore in court in 1995 when he was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The group left with Mr. Simpson’s Hall of Fame certificate and a photo of J. Edgar Hoover, former Federal Bureau of Investigation director, among other items, Mr. Simpson said.

“Everybody knows this is stolen stuff,” Mr. Simpson was quoted as saying. “Not only wasn’t there a break-in, but Riccio came to the lobby and escorted us up to the room.” (The reference was to Tom Riccio, an auction house owner.)

“In any event,” Mr. Simpson was quoted as saying, “it’s stolen stuff that’s mine. Nobody was roughed up.”

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