The auction isn’t supposed to be underway until Tuesday, but the LA Times’ Robert Welkos reports that the estate of Nicole Brown Simpson is seeking a court order for permission to bid on the book rights to O.J. Simpson‘s IF I DID IT at a sheriff’s auction Tuesday in Sacramento. Greg K. Hafif, the attorney for the Nicole Brown Simpson estate, said the estate wants the judge in the case to allow it to take a portion of the $33.5-million civil judgment won from O.J. Simpson and use it as a “credit bid” on the book during the auction. He added that the goal would be to “make sure this book is never published.”
Hafif called on Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman‘s father, to join with them in making the bid. But David J. Cook, the lawyer who won a court order in February that gave the Goldmans the rights to the book, objected to the legal maneuver by the estate. and criticized the Brown estate for coming in so late. Maybe the estate has “a beef with their lawyers,” Cook said, “but they didn’t have the savvy or the intelligence or whatever to go out and do this. We all share the tragedy for the Browns, and they have lots of tears, and our tears are their tears, but they have to stop crying and move forward.”