Fred Goldman Says O.J. Simpson’s Death Is “No Great Loss to the World”
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1940-present
Fred Goldman Today: Ron Goldman’s Father Reacts to the Death of O.J. Simpson
Almost 30 years after his son, Ron Goldman, was murdered, Fred Goldman says “the hope for true accountability has ended” now that O.J. Simpson has died. Fred and his daughter, Kim, issued that joint statement via social media on April 11, when news of the fallen football legend’s death from cancer broke.
Simpson famously went to criminal trial for the June 1994 murders of Ron and his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson in what became known as the “Trial of the Century.” He was acquitted in October 1995, though Fred filed a civil lawsuit in which the former actor and football star was found liable for the wrongful deaths of Brown Simpson and Ron two years later. Simpson died before paying all $33.5 million in damages he owed to the victims’ families.
“The only thing I have to say, is it’s just further reminder of Ron being gone all these years,” Fred told NBC News. “It’s no great loss to the world. It’s a further reminder of Ron’s being gone.”
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Who Is Fred Goldman?
Fred Goldman suffered a heartbreaking loss in 1994 when his son, Ron Goldman, was found murdered along with Nicole Brown Simpson. Former football star O.J. Simpson was charged with the murders, and while he was acquitted in a criminal trial, he was later found liable for the victims’ deaths in a civil suit. Fred Goldman and his family have since told their story in books and sought to claim their full share of the civil settlement.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Fred Goldman
BORN: December 6, 1940
BIRTHPLACE: Chicago, Illinois
SPOUSES: Sharon and Patti
CHILDREN: Ron Goldman and Kim
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Sagittarius
Dedicated Father
Fred Goldman was born on December 6, 1940, in Chicago. He later became a businessman and started a family. Goldman raised Ron and his daughter, Kim, on his own after his divorce from their mother, Sharon, in 1974. He remarried in 1987 and moved to Southern California with Kim and new wife Patti’s three children. Ron eventually joined them after studying for a semester at Illinois State University.
Son’s Tragic Death
On June 12, 1994, Ron and his friend Nicole Brown Simpson were brutally slain outside of her home in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood. Ron had gone there to return a pair of eyeglasses left behind at the Mezzaluna restaurant, where he worked as a waiter. Fred and his family learned about Ron’s death the next day and were devastated by the news.
Brown Simpson’s ex-husband, O.J. Simpson, was soon arrested, following a televised car chase, and charged with the murders. During the criminal trial, which began in January 1995, Fred gave several press conferences, seeking justice for his son and his friend. He and his family soon filed a civil suit against Simpson for the wrongful death of his son.
When the jury acquitted Simpson of the criminal charges in October 1995, Goldman was heartbroken. “I deeply believe that this country lost today,” he said in a press conference afterward. “Justice was not served. I and my family will do everything in our power to bring about the kind of change that won’t allow what happened today to ever happen to another family again.”
Fight for Justice
After the trial, Goldman dedicated himself to improving the criminal justice system by becoming a director with the nonprofit Safe Streets. In February 1997, the Goldmans won their civil suit against Simpson. They were awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages, with another $25 million to be split between them and Brown Simpson’s family, but they had a hard time collecting the money. They were able to seize Simpson’s Heisman Trophy and sold it for roughly $250,000 in 1999.
The Goldman family also shared their loss and personal struggles in the 1997 book His Name Is Ron: Our Search for Justice. Although the family received a $450,000 advance for their story, Fred insisted they weren’t doing it for the money. “Doing this book will give us the vehicle to spend more time pressing for judicial reform in this country and to speak out on behalf of all victims’ rights,” he told Publishers Weekly.
Around 1999, Goldman was named the president of GlobalTrak International. He later worked in real estate and in retail sales after relocating to Arizona.
Goldman has never given up trying to hold Simpson accountable for the death of his son. He and his family sued Simpson over his plans to publish a hypothetical account of the murders called If I Did It in 2007. The Goldmans eventually won the rights to the work and published it as If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.
According to The Guardian, Fred felt like releasing the book was a way “to show anybody who’s sitting on the fence about this case that [Simpson] was responsible for the murder of Ron and Nicole.” The following year, he was in a Nevada courtroom when Simpson was convicted for armed robbery and kidnapping, after attacking two sports memorabilia dealers. The fallen football legend maintained he had been trying to retrieve his personal items. “If our efforts for all these years of pushing him drove him to commit armed robbery in Vegas, great!” Fred told reporters afterward. “This monster is where he belongs—behind bars.”
Recent Years
In 2014, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the murders, Goldman revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail his belief that Simpson lawyer Robert Kardashian had taken crucial evidence from the ex-football star’s home and hidden it. “That evidence would have convicted the killer,” Goldman said.
Later that year, it was announced that production would begin on an anthology series called American Crime Story, with the saga of the Simpson murders and trial set to be featured in the first season. The series premiered in February 2016, with The Sopranos alum Joseph Siravo playing the role of Fred.
Fred, Kim, and Nicole’s sister Tanya Brown were critical of the series and said they weren’t consulted during its creation and production. They were concerned the portrayal would take creative liberty with details of the case and downplay the grief they had experienced. “A whole new generation who never saw this take place is going to see this series and assume that everything is fact,” Fred said in an interview with Dr. Phil McGraw. “That’s going to become the new reality, and that’s very troubling to me.”
Quotes
Whether it’s two days, two months or now 20 years later, nothing has changed. It’s the same loss, the same feeling that there is a missing piece in our family, and it’s just as intense as the day he died.
The money is not an issue. It never has been. It’s holding the man who killed my son and Nicole responsible.
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