Whatever Happened To......?

It's been five years since O.J. Simpson was acquitted in the stabbing death of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson,and her friend, Ron Goldman. The notorious tragedy and its aftermath (though Simpson was acquitted by the jury, he was later found guilty in a civil case) dominated the news on and off for years.

Sometimes called "the trial of the century," the story of a black former football star and current movie actor accused of killing his white wife gripped the nation; the divide between those who thought Simpson was guilty and those who didn't was often drawn along racial lines.

The key people in the case – the beleaguered female prosecutor, the showboat defense lawyer, the handsome accused sports hero, his glamorous slain wife, the victims' sisters, the judge and others became well known throughout the country. They began to seem like the cast of characters in a bizarre soap opera.

What happened to these people, who once loomed so large in the national arena?

• O.J. Simpson was recently accused by his 25-year-old girlfriend, Christine Prody, of breaking into her apartment. He denied it, saying she was being "overly emotional." In any case, she didn't press charges. Simpson told CBS affiliate WFOR in Miami that it was all a big misunderstanding.

  The former football player relocated to Miami where he owns a five-bedroom, four-bath house on two acres of land. It has a 1,000-square-foot pool, multi-level deck and a brick fireplace. The asking price for the 47-year-old home was $625,000, but it's not known how much Simpson paid.

  When a civil court jury found Simpson guilty for the killings, Simpson was ordered to pay the victims' families $33.5 million. However, Simpson is hoping that under Florida law, the Goldmans and Browns can't claim ownership of his home. Simpson lives on his monthly $20,000 National Football League pension.

• Denise Brown, Nicole's sister, has been accused of not adequately distributing funds she collected, as founder and chairperson of the Nicole Brown Charitable Foundation. The Foundation is supposed to provide grants to shelters for battered women and children. She occasionally appears as a guest speaker at conferences on the issue of domestic violence.
• It turns out that Kato Kaelin, Simpson's house-sitter, is stretching out his 15 minutes of fame: he has an article coming out in the November issue of Men's Health Magazine, "How To Be A Perfect Houseguest." And although Kaelin's acting career hasn't panned out, he's not desperate for the money. He settled a $15 million lawsuit he filed against the National Examiner for their headline, "Cops Think Kato Did It!"

  Occasionally Kaelin's name comes up in the same sentence as people like Tonya Harding or John Bobbitt. The fisherman who found Elian Gonzalez, and then continued to play a role in the drama surrounding the boy while he was in Miami, has been referred to as the "Latino Kato Kaelin."

• Although Marcia Clark, the chief prosecutor, lost the trial, nobody who gets a $4.2 million book contract can be considered a loser. The book, Without A Doubt. became a bestseller. Clark is currently Of Counsel to the Law Offices of Judith R. Forman, practicing family law in Los Angeles. She also sometimes provides legal analysis to NBC and MSNBC, and has spoken out on domestic violence.
• Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran continues to be a very visible civil and criminal trial lawyer, taking on high-profile cases. He was victorious in the case of Cynthia Wiggins vs. Galleria Mall wrongful death case in Buffalo; he was affiliated with the Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo cases; and his 1997 memoir, Journey To Justice was a bestseller.
• Fred Goldman, Ron's father, lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he is a victims' rights advocate. He'd like to know how much money O.J. Simpson has. "Murderers belong on death row, not on a golf course," Goldman has said.
• F. Lee Bailey, who was part of Simpson's legal defense "dream" team, has had some legal troubles of his own. For one thing, he may be disbarred in Florida, after he was found in contempt of court. Bailey refused to hand over to the government what officials say is illicitly earned money that a client had paid him for legal fees.

  If he's disbarred, Bailey could also lose the right to practice law in Massachusetts, the only other state where he is licensed.

  In 1996 Bailey spent six weeks in prison, on another contempt of court charge, until he turned over disputed stock worth some $16 million to the government. The shares of stock were given to him by a drug-dealer client.

  Bailey's fourth wife and his mother died in 1999.

  In better times, Bailey represented such celebrity clients as Patty Hearst and Dr. Sam Sheppard.