The legal representative of O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson's children has settled a lawsuit against the slain woman's parents, ending a dispute over whether the children were entitled to more than $260,000 the Browns allegedly made from the sale of their daughter's belongings, it was announced Monday.
The confidential settlement, which court officials said was reached Friday, closed one of the uglier chapters of the never-ending postscript to the O.J. Simpson case. A trial on the probate issues was scheduled to begin Monday.
"The matter has been amicably resolved among the parties via a private resolution," said Gary M. Ruttenberg, the personal attorney for Nicole Brown Simpson's parents, Louis and Juditha Brown. He would not say whether the Browns are repaying the estate.
Attorneys for the children's legal representative confirmed that a settlement had been reached but would not comment further.
B. Wayne Hughes, the guardian for Sydney and Justin Simpson's estate, filed papers in July demanding that the Browns repay the children for profits they made from selling Nicole Brown's belongings. Although O.J. Simpson was awarded custody of the children in the wake of his wife's slaying, Hughes has continued to represent the children in this probate matter.
Hughes claimed that the children were entitled to $100,000 that the Browns made when they sold Nicole Simpson's diaries to the National Enquirer, $162,000 they received from the sale of photographs and a video of the Simpson wedding, and any other money the Browns or their children made from the sale or use of Nicole Simpson's personal property.
Hughes also sought $6,665 of estate money the Browns spent in their unsuccessful bid for custody of the children and repayment of a $50,000 loan he said Nicole Simpson made to her father shortly before her death.
In papers filed with the court, Hughes took issue with Louis Brown's claims that he owned his daughter's diary.
Brown said in a deposition that Nicole Simpson told him on Mother's Day 1994--a month before her death--that her ex-husband was going to kill her, court documents allege. Brown said Nicole Simpson told him that "she had incriminating information that she wanted me to have if anything did happen to her, if she lost her life."
O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman, but a subsequent civil trial found that he was liable for the deaths. A jury ordered him to pay the two families $33.5 million in damages.
