If I Did It

O. J. Simpson was arrested after the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was tried for the crime in a case that captured the attention of the American people, but he was ultimately found not guilty of criminal charges. The victim's family brought a civil case against Simpson, and he was found liable for willfully and wrongfully causing the deaths of Ron and Nicole by committing battery with malice and oppression. In 2006, HarperCollins announced the publication of a book, titled If I Did It, in which Simpson told how he hypothetically would have committed the murders. In response to public outrage that Simpson stood to profit from these crimes, HarperCollins canceled the book. A Florida bankruptcy court awarded the rights to the Goldmans in August 2007 to partially satisfy the unpaid civil judgment, which had grown to over $38 million with interest as of 2012.