O.J. Simpson’s Will Executor Says 'Fred Goldman's Claim Will Be Accepted' Days After Saying He'd Get 'Zero': Report

O.J. Simpson’s final will was filed in Clark County, Nev., on April 12, two days after his death at 76

After initially bristling at the prospect of Ron Goldman's family getting money from O.J. Simpson’s estate, the disgraced football star's lawyer now says he welcomes claims from the Goldman family.

Malcolm LaVergne, who is the executor of Simpson's will, told The Hollywood Reporter that any claim by Fred Goldman, the father of Ron, "will be accepted."

“And his claim will be handled in accordance with Nevada law,” LaVergne said.

Simpson was famously acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. David Cook, an attorney for the Goldman family, said Simpson owed the family more than $100 million from a 1997 wrongful death lawsuit.

Last week, LaVergne told the Las Vegas Review-Journal  that it was his hope that “the Goldmans get zero, nothing.”

“Them specifically," added LaVergne, who according to the outlet has represented Simpson since 2009. "And I will do everything in my capacity as the executor or personal representative to try and ensure that they get nothing.”

On Sunday, April 14, LaVergne told PEOPLE that he was backtracking from those remarks.

“They were pretty harsh," he said.

In his comments to the Review-Journal, LaVergne referenced the events surrounding the publication of Simpson's book If I Did It, in which the Goldman family secured the rights and later issued a revised edition featuring additional commentary.

Related: O.J. Simpson's Will Executor 'Backtracks' on Remarks that Goldman Family Will Get 'Zero': 'That Was Pretty Harsh' (Exclusive)

But he told PEOPLE that he wishes he hadn't come across so stridently, saying he had been accustomed to acting as Simpson's lawyer and not the executor of his estate, which he believes requires "a different tact."

“I've backtracked from that since, because you've got to understand, there's a learning curve to everything,” he told PEOPLE. “And I was an advocate for Mr. Simpson so long, and he was able to live a really great last seven years of his life out because I was his attorney and advocate for all that time, but now my attorney hat is off, and my executor hat is on.”

LaVergne said his response came after comments Goldman's attorney made after Simpson's death. "An hour after, he got notice that Simpson was dead, he started making a bunch of disparaging remarks about O.J. and he ramped up," he said. "He ramped up the rhetoric. And so that was really in response to ramping up the rhetoric."

LaVergne said he plans to be “as transparent as possible" with the Goldman family.

LaVergne said there is a “pecking order” for the claims against the estate, per a Nevada statute. “There are nine specific categories of priority. Wrongful death lawsuits are number eight.”

LaVergne said IRS debt, lawyer fees and funeral expenses are debts and charges that come before any judgments rendered against a decedent during their lifetime.

“As an executor, I can't advance Fred Goldman to the top of the line,” he says. “What I can do is offer his attorney here locally, the opportunity to come check my homework, come to my office, look at all the videos I've had recording him, look at the documents, view the documents I have. I can let him do all that. He'll be able to see what I've recorded at the home, what I've done.”

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Simpson’s final will was filed in Clark County, Nevada, on April 12, two days after his death at 76.

The will was signed by the former football player on Jan. 24, per the Eighth Judicial Court Portal's website.

Simpson requested his property be placed into The Orenthal Simpson Revocable Living Trust, and also signed that his last wishes for his remains would be attached to the will itself.

"He died without penance,” Cook said of Simpson. “He did not want to give a dime, a nickel to Fred [Goldman], never, anything, never."

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