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Auction of rights to OJ Simpson book cancelled
A court-ordered auction of the rights to O.J. Simpson's halted book-TV project If I Did It, Here's How It Happened has been cancelled. O.J. Simpson's surrogate company filed for bankruptcy last week, which has halted Tuesday's auction of the rights to the scrapped book and TV project If I Did It.(Richard Drew/Associated Press) The auction, originally scheduled for Tuesday in California, was scrapped because the former football star's company filed for bankruptcy in Florida late last week, according to a lawyer representing the family of Ron Goldman, who was killed alongside Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, in 1994. Simpson was acquitted of murder charges in the case in 1995. However, he subsequently lost a wrongful death civil suit brought by the Goldman family and was ordered to pay damages of $33.5 million US — little of which the family has recovered over the past decade.
From early days, lawyers have led
Several years ago, members of the Old Hernando History Roundtable had the pleasure of hearing Joseph E. Johnston Jr. speak of old times in the Hernando legal profession. Joe was the first full-time lawyer in town. Sure, there have been many lawyers before him, but he was the first to earn a living solely from the practice of law. The story of those early lawyers starts when the first attorney in the county, Byrd M. Pearson, began his practice. Born in Union District, S.C., in 1803, he arrived locally by 1845 and purchased a large tract of land at the top of a hill now known as Chinsegut Hill. He sold the plantation to Francis Edrington in May 1851 and moved to Jacksonville. Later Pearson became a justice on the Florida Supreme Court. Another early attorney was Perry Green Wall.
Bar disbars five, disciplines others, none from Jacksonville
The Florida Bar, the states guardian for the integrity of the legal profession, announced that the Florida Supreme Court in recent court orders disciplined 26 attorneys five were disbarred, 16 suspended, three were placed on probation and six were reprimanded. Some attorneys received more than one form of discipline. None of the disciplined attorneys were from Jacksonville and none were from the Northeast Florida area. The following lawyers are disciplined: Julio Adolfo Galletti, 7935 S.W. 17th Street, Miami, permanently disbarred effective immediately pursuant to a March 1 court order. Galletti failed to properly maintain a trust account with funds from 46 clients as well as related accounting records. Leonard William Krouner, 4196 Mount Hukee Ave., San Diego, Calif., disbarred effective immediately pursuant to a March 21 court order.
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