The estate dropped its case against his company in April 2025. It has since accepted a claim of almost $58 million from Ron Goldman’s father, though its executor values the whole estate at no more than $500,000.
Justin Ryan Simpson, 38, the son of OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson, is no longer being sued by his late father’s estate over the Las Vegas house where OJ spent his last years.
Malcolm LaVergne, the executor OJ named in his will, sued Justin’s company, Primary Holdings LLC, in January 2025, claiming the house really belonged to the estate. He dropped the case on 3 April 2025, five days before a judge was due to hear the company’s request to throw it out, Clark County District Court records in Nevada show.
A separate dispute, in which Justin and his half-sister Arnelle objected to LaVergne’s plans for their father’s belongings, went to a settlement conference before a senior judge on 27 January 2026. The court record lists LaVergne, Fred Goldman’s lawyer Michaelle Rafferty, and Jack Juan, the lawyer for Justin and Arnelle, among those present. It gives the result as “Matter Settled” and does not say what was agreed. The Daily Story found no news report of the settlement or of the dismissal.
Fred Goldman, whose son Ron was killed with Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994, has been trying to collect from OJ since a civil jury found him liable for the deaths in 1997. The estate approved his claim at almost $58 million in November 2025. Two months later LaVergne put the value of the whole estate at about $400,000 to $500,000, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. He had estimated the equity in the house at about $250,000.
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Why did OJ Simpson’s estate sue his son?
Primary Holdings, which Justin managed, bought the house in August 2022 for $795,000. The lawsuit said OJ was the “de facto owner”, KTNV reported, because he lived there with exclusive control and made all the payments. The Review-Journal reported that those payments included a $636,000 mortgage Justin had taken out as the company’s manager.
The estate also claimed that Justin had used the company to arrange the purchase solely to keep the house away from his father’s creditors, and that he moved in after OJ died of prostate cancer on 10 April 2024, aged 76.
LaVergne, who had been OJ’s lawyer since 2009, gave the Review-Journal his view of why Justin was living there: “I think it’s because he’s very selfish.” He said Justin could sign the house over to the estate or pay it what had been put down on the property plus its rise in value, “probably now roughly about a quarter of a million dollars”. Justin and his lawyer did not respond to the paper’s requests for comment.
Justin’s company fought the case. On 21 February 2025 its lawyers, Liane Wakayama and Jeremy Holmes, asked the court to dismiss it for failing to state a valid legal claim or, as an alternative, to rule for the company without a trial. They also asked the judge to remove the notice LaVergne had filed on the title, which warned buyers that ownership was disputed.
How the house case ended
The company filed its final replies on 1 April 2025, and two days later LaVergne withdrew the notice and dropped the case.
| Date | What happened in the house case |
|---|---|
| 6 January 2025 | LaVergne sues Primary Holdings and files a notice on the title |
| 21 February 2025 | The company asks the court to dismiss the case and remove the notice |
| 4 and 18 March 2025 | Both sides agree to postpone the hearing, twice |
| 1 April 2025 | The company files its replies |
| 3 April 2025 | LaVergne releases the notice and files a voluntary dismissal |
| 8 April 2025 | The judge cancels the hearing |
Source: Clark County District Court, case A-25-909362-C
The dismissal was without prejudice, which means the estate could bring the same claim again. Because it came before any ruling, none of the lawsuit’s allegations was tested in court, and the court file gives no reason for the decision. A Daily Story search of Clark County District Court records in September 2026 found no new case against Primary Holdings.
The fight over the auction
While the house case was running, Justin and Arnelle, OJ’s daughter from his first marriage, were challenging LaVergne in probate court. In February 2025 they formally objected to his plans for OJ’s possessions, which included an online auction by Goldin.
At a hearing on 20 March 2025, their lawyer Jack Juan told District Judge Jessica Peterson that some of the items up for sale belonged to his clients:
“We have these items, personal items, that will now be available to the public, to TMZ, that belong to my client. How would you like it, your honor, if your baby pictures were being sold?”
Peterson said the children should be entitled to have their pictures. According to the Review-Journal, she let the auction go ahead but ruled that no sale could be completed until a later hearing. On 12 April 2025 she approved part of the estate’s plan and refused the rest, the docket shows. The auction raised $268,486.
At a status check on 29 May 2025, listed on the docket as “Collaborative Decision Making”, the lawyers were fighting over a grand piano and family photographs. Peterson called the disputes “ridiculous” and told them to “just knock it off”. She ordered a settlement conference in June, and Senior Judge Nancy Becker held it on 27 January 2026. A recorder’s transcript was filed with the court in March 2026.
What OJ Simpson’s estate owes
A civil jury in Santa Monica, California, found OJ liable in February 1997 for the deaths of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, who were stabbed to death outside her Brentwood home on 12 June 1994. A criminal jury had acquitted him of their murders in 1995.
The civil jury awarded $33.5 million, according to a 2001 California appeals court ruling in the case. Ron Goldman’s parents were awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages. Ron Goldman’s estate and Nicole Brown Simpson’s estate were each awarded $12.5 million in punitive damages.
Shortly after OJ’s death in April 2024, LaVergne said he hoped the Goldmans would get “zero, nothing”, but he backtracked within days. Fred Goldman filed a claim against the estate that July, seeking $117 million. On 14 November 2025 the estate approved the claim at $57,997,858.12 plus interest. That is the exact amount of a judgment Goldman registered in Nevada in February 2021.
The estate has rejected several other claims. They include $1,147,373.36 sought by Ronald Slates, a former OJ lawyer who then sued the estate, and $633,945.60 from California’s Franchise Tax Board, which later withdrew its claim. The probate docket does not list a claim in the name of Nicole Brown Simpson’s estate, although two claims appear on it without a claimant’s name.
| The estate’s numbers | Amount | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Fred Goldman’s approved claim | $57,997,858.12 plus interest | November 2025 |
| Money raised by the 2025 auction | $268,486 | Reported May 2025 |
| Equity in the Las Vegas house, according to LaVergne | About $250,000 | January 2025 |
| Value of the whole estate, according to LaVergne | About $400,000 to $500,000 | January 2026 |
Who is Justin Simpson?
Justin was born on 6 August 1988. He was 5 and asleep upstairs with his sister Sydney, then 8, on the night their mother and Ron Goldman were killed.
Nicole’s parents, Lou and Juditha Brown, became the children’s guardians in October 1994. A judge returned them to OJ in December 1996, but in November 1998 a California appeals court ordered a new hearing, saying the judge should have considered evidence on whether OJ had killed their mother. The custody fight ended in August 2000, when Juditha Brown agreed to let OJ move the children to Florida.
The family settled in Kendall, near Miami, where Justin went to Gulliver Preparatory School. In October 2002, at 14, he told the Miami Herald how he coped with his mother’s death: “From time to time, I think about it. But I just have to get it through my system when it comes into my mind. Then I just move on.”
He studied at Florida State University and got his Florida real estate licence in 2015. A year later he was selling homes in St Petersburg for Coldwell Banker, the Tampa Bay Times reported. He announced on Instagram in February 2022 that he was about to become a father. OJ’s will, signed on 25 January 2024, named Justin to take over as executor if LaVergne could not serve. When the estate sued his company a year later, KTNV described him as a licensed Realtor in Nevada.
What is still unknown
- Why the estate dropped the house lawsuit
- What was agreed on 27 January 2026. The transcript is on file with the court, but The Daily Story has not seen it
- Who holds the title to the house now
- How much the Goldman family will receive
As of October 2026, the probate docket shows no hearing scheduled in the case, which remains open.
