O.J. Simpson Book Rights to Be Auctioned

The rights to O.J. Simpson's book "If I Did It" will be auctioned off April 17, according to authorities.

It will put the quasi-confessional book one step closer to finally being published.

Proceeds from the court-ordered auction will help satisfy a $33.5 million civil judgment rendered against the former NFL star in 1997 for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

The auction, to be held in Sacramento, Calif., comes five months after News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch halted plans to publish the book about how Simpson could have committed the 1994 murders of if he had indeed been responsible.

O.J. Simpson has emphatically maintained his innocence, despite the book, which many consider to be a confession.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered rights to the book to be put up for auction earlier this month at the request of Goldman's father, who originally condemned it as a shameful exploitation. His campaign to collect on the civil judgment, howver, basically guaranteed that "If I Did It" would be published.

Cook says the Goldmans will bid on the book and interview rights if no one else bids on them.

"He can't cash grief at the bank," said Goldman's lawyer, David Cook. "The sheriff is now running the book-of-the-month club."

Phone messages left for Simpson's attorney Yale Galanter on Tuesday were not immediately returned.

O. J. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of criminal charges at the end of his murder trial. He vowed to never voluntarily pay the judgment, and little has been collected so far. The Simpson trial was dubbed the 'trial of the century' by many and riveted the public for months. Simpson was so distraught at one point that he was involved in a famous police chase in his white Ford Bronco.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department was assigned to conduct the book auction because the book's original publisher, News Corp.-owned HarperCollins has offices in Sacramento.

Cook said he didn't know how much the book rights might go for at the auction.

"Nobody can tell," he said. "That is extremely difficult to assess. Who knows who's going to show up?"

Plans to publish the book along with an accompanying TV interview on Fox were both cancelled by Murdoch after public outrage in November.

The book's publisher, Judith Regan, who also conducted the TV interview, was fired about a month later.

Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/03/28/simpson.book.ap/
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=2986810