Having been disbarred in 2003, the old gunslinger Bailey could offer only informal advice. Fire your lawyer, he implored Simpson, who refused to listen. A jury convicted him on all 10 counts, and he was slapped with a 33-year prison sentence.
Simpson’s attorney, Malcolm LaVergne, had described him in an interview with ABC News as eager to reunite with his family, eat steak, move back to Florida and get the latest iPhone. Simpson had spoken during his July parole hearing, asserting that “I’m not a guy who has lived a criminal life.”
O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1995. The investigation and trial lasted more than a year and included a number of memorable moments. Here are a few of them, starting with O.J.'s infamous car chase which took place June 17, 1994.
Bailey joined Simpson’s defense team with a courtroom résumé that even Perry Mason would be jealous of. Bailey got neurosurgeon Sam Sheppard a new trial on charges he brutally killed his wife-and a not-guilty verdict. He defended fugitive newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, the “Boston Strangler” and scores of other accused murderers.
Throughout his career, Bailey antagonized authorities with his sometimes abrasive style and his quest for publicity. He was censured by a Massachusetts judge in 1970 for "his philosophy of extreme egocentricity," and was disbarred for a year in New Jersey in 1971 for talking publicly about a case.
Shapiro, a co-counsel in the drug case, testified as a Government witness about his understanding of the agreement under which Mr. Bailey came into control of the stock. He was not competing for control of the stock.
(June 10, 1933 – June 3, 2021) was an American criminal defense attorney. Bailey's name first came to nationwide attention for his involvement in the second murder trial of Sam Sheppard, a surgeon accused of murdering his wife.
He doesn't play the game the rest of us play: 'Oh, I don't know whether he's guilty or innocent, but I'm giving him the best possible defense. ' Bailey is totally convinced that O.J. was innocent.”
Shapiro, who did not return telephoned messages for comment today, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying on Sunday that he does not want Bailey to play a major role in court because, "We can't have snakes in the bed trying to sleep with us."
June 16, 1994Nicole Brown Simpson / Date of burial
F. Lee Bailey, the dramatic criminal defense lawyer who represented Sam Shepherd, Patty Hearst, the Boston Strangler, the My Lai Massacre commander and O.J. Simpson, died Thursday in Atlanta. He was 87.
Alcohol seemed to be one of Bailey's weaknesses. The first lines of his 1975 memoir read, "Heavy trials make me thirsty." Ignoring his friends advice to cut back, Bailey claimed that "it's my fuel." Bailey's lust for the spotlight made the Simpson trial quite enticing.
Simpson's legal “Dream Team” included charismatic lawyers Robert Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran along with Simpson’s close friend Robert Kardashian – the late father of Kim Kardashian – and F Lee Bailey.
Did F Lee Bailey defend OJ Simpson? Famous cases explained. F. LEE Bailey, an attorney who defended a series of high-profile cases before he was disbarred in two states, died on June 3, 2021. Here's everything you need to know about his most famous cases.
In her autobiography, Hearst described Bailey as having the appearance of someone with a hangover, and spilling water down the front of his pants while making the closing argument.
Bailey worked on a number of high-profile cases throughout his career, with the most known and publicized to be the trial of Simpson. Some of the most famous cases included the court-martial of Captain Ernest Medina for the My Lai Massacre and Sam Sheppard's re-trial over the murder of his wife.
In perhaps the most high-profile case of his career, F Lee Bailey was part of the dream team that defended former NFL star OJ Simpson and got him acquitted on charges that he killed his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in 1995. Dubbed the “Trial of the Century”, Simpson’s murder trial began on January 24, 1995, ...
Following Bailey's death on June 3, 2021 ,Simpson described him in a statement as "one of the great lawyers of our time" and "a great friend.".
Minutes before Bailey was due to deliver a summation on a case in North Carolina, he received a call informing him that she might not survive the night. “Lee goes out and gives his closing argument. You could hear a pin drop,” says his friend and longtime investigator Patrick McKenna. “I have no idea how he did it.
Bailey ’s self-assigned role as “last one standing” of the surviving Simpson attorneys to still proclaim his client’s innocence is totally unsurprising to Dershowitz. “If F. Lee Bailey’s your lawyer, you’re his friend, you’re his client, and you’re innocent,” he says. “He’s the only lawyer who does that.
Lee Bailey’s brain goes a thousand miles an hour, so quick that he becomes frustrated with those who cannot keep up.”. Indeed, Bailey says that he scored 162 on two childhood IQ tests —a number higher than Albert Einstein’s. Jurors loved him, especially women; “Bailey types,” they called them in his office.
His investigators heard rumors that Resnick owed drug dealers $30,000, a theory the defense introduced in the trial. “We think the killers came to look for Faye Resnick, who was also blond, and, typical of hitmen, they were dumb enough to mistake Nicole for Faye Resnick,” he says.
Even if his fee had been negotiated as he claims, the details were never memorialized on paper. Two years later Duboc fired Bailey, and the court ordered Bailey to return the stock, the value of which, true to Duboc’s prediction, had skyrocketed from just under $6 million to $26 million. Bailey flatly refused.
Shapiro showed up and testified that Bailey was making the whole fee structure up. Still, Bailey remained defiant in the face of the judge’s threats to jail him. “Hell, I’d do six months standing on my head for $10 million!” he told a reporter at the time.
Despite Bailey’s denials, Shapiro was convince d that he was behind the leak and declared war. “We can’t have snakes sleeping in the bed with us,” Shapiro told the Los Angeles Times. Shapiro refused to comment for this story, except to e-mail, “When he was in trouble in San Francisco and had his choice of any lawyer in the country, he chose me.” (Bailey now says Shapiro “had no talent in the courtroom.”) When Brent died of an accidental drug overdose in 2005, Bailey didn’t pick up the phone.
In her autobiography, Hearst described Bailey as having the appearance of someone with a hangover, and spilling water down the front of his pants while making the closing argument.
Bailey worked on a number of high-profile cases throughout his career, with the most known and publicized to be the trial of Simpson. Some of the most famous cases included the court-martial of Captain Ernest Medina for the My Lai Massacre and Sam Sheppard's re-trial over the murder of his wife.
While he was in jail for a series of sexual assaults, known as the "Green Man" he confessed his guilt in the "Boston Strangler" murders to Bailey. He was found guilty of the assaults but was never tried for the strangling as no physical evidence substantiated his confession.
The case that inspired the popular TV series The Fugitive took place in Ohio, where Sheppard was found guilty of murdering his wife Marilyn in 1954. His brother hired Bailey to help with the appeal, which he did in 1966 by arguing before the US Supreme Court that Sheppard had been denied due process.
Following Bailey's death on June 3, 2021 ,Simpson described him in a statement as "one of the great lawyers of our time" and "a great friend.".
In perhaps the most high-profile case of his career, F Lee Bailey was part of the dream team that defended former NFL star OJ Simpson and got him acquitted on charges that he killed his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in 1995. Dubbed the “Trial of the Century”, Simpson’s murder trial began on January 24, 1995, ...
After serving 22 months her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 and she was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001. Lee Bailey dead at 87 – OJ Simpson talks about the life of celebrity lawyer who helped him get acquitted and was later disbarred. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
But Maine’s bar association rejected him. Alan Dershowitz, another famed attorney who was a colleague from the Simpson case, believes Bailey is paying the price for defending the NFL football legend, who was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
He was on the cover of magazines for fighting all the way to the Supreme Court to overturn the conviction of Sam Sheppard, a neurosurgeon imprisoned for killing his pregnant wife and whose case would inspire the movie “The Fugitive.”.
These days, Bailey runs a consulting business above a hair salon in Yarmouth, Maine, which is operated by his current girlfriend, Debbie Elliott, a curvaceous 62-year-old blonde. His office is decorated with models of jets he once owned.
Johnnie Cochran, the lead defense attorney of the so-called “Dream Team,” earned up to $5 million from helping to win Simpson’s acquittal on double murder charges and went on to defend other high-profile defendants until he died of a brain tumor in 2005.
Bailey's high public profile came both as a result of the cases he took on and his own actions. In 2001, he was disbarred in the state of Florida, with reciprocal disbarment in Massachusetts on April 11, 2003. The Florida disbarment was the result of his handling of shares in a pharmaceutical company named Biochem Pharma during his representation of marijuana dealer Claude DuBoc. Bailey had transferred a large portion of DuBoc's assets into his own accounts. The stock, worth about $5.9 million, was supposed to be included in the forfeiture of assets that DuBoc made as part of a plea bargain. It had been held by Bailey because it would be sold immediately if it came into government possession, but it was expected to rise dramatically in value. Bailey later refused to turn it over, saying that it was payment of his legal fees and not part of DuBoc's asset forfeiture. In addition, Bailey said that the stock was collateral for loans that he had received, and so could not be sold until the loans were repaid. These arguments were rejected by the court; the stock rose in value to about $20 million, and Bailey then argued that, if he turned over the stock so that it could be sold, he was entitled to keep the difference between what it was valued at when he received it and its new, higher price. After Bailey was imprisoned for six weeks in 1996 for contempt of court, his brother raised the money that enabled Bailey to turn the stock over to the government, and he was released. He was later found guilty of seven counts of attorney misconduct by the Florida Supreme Court, and in 2001 he was disbarred. Massachusetts disbarred Bailey two years later.
Massachusetts disbarred Bailey two years later. In early 2003, a judge ordered Bailey to pay $5 million in taxes and penalties on income connected with the Duboc case, but the judge later reversed the decision, although Bailey still had an unpaid tax bill of nearly $2 million, which he disputed.
In 1966, Bailey successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Sheppard had been denied due process, winning a re-trial. A not guilty verdict followed. This case established Bailey's reputation as a skilled defense attorney and was the first of many high-profile cases.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007. A strike to Bailey's credibility came when he took on the case of aggrieved families of passengers on Korean Air Lines Flight 007, which was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1983.
Bailey was born June 10, 1933 in Waltham, Massachusetts. His mother, Grace (Mitchell), was a teacher and nursery school director, and his father, Francis Lee Bailey, Sr., was an advertising salesman. His parents divorced when he was ten.
The prosecution of Patty Hearst , a newspaper heiress who had committed armed bank robberies after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), was one of Bailey's defeats. In her autobiography, Hearst described his closing argument as "disjointed" and said that she suspected he had been drinking. During his closing argument, Bailey spilled a glass of water on his pants. Hearst was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. She served 22 months before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. She was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.
Carl A. Coppolino was accused of the July 30, 1963, murder of retired Army Col. William Farber, his neighbor and the husband of Marjorie Farber, with whom Coppolino was having an affair. He was also accused of the August 28, 1965, murder of his wife, Carmela Coppolino . The prosecution claimed that Coppolino injected his victims with a paralyzing drug called succinylcholine chloride, which at the time was undetectable due to limited forensic technology. Bailey successfully defended Coppolino in the New Jersey case over the death of Farber in December 1966. However, Coppolino was convicted of murdering his wife in Florida. He was paroled after serving 12 years of his sentence.
The two estates needed large amounts of money for maintenance while waiting to be sold. Bailey can't reapply for admission to the bar for five years under the order. After that, if he were to reapply, he would have to retake the bar exam and undergo a background and character examination.
The Supreme Court said Bailey was guilty of "the most serious and basic trust account violations" for his handling of some stock in the case of convicted drug dealer Claude Duboc. Bailey was supposed to put the stock toward Duboc's forfeiture requirement as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors. "Nevertheless, from the day it was ...
Bailey lives in Manalapan near Palm Beach. He is also a member of the Massachusetts Bar. The court said Bailey, rather than keeping money from the sale of stock separate, mixed it with money in his own bank account, obtained a line of credit on it and sold some of it. A referee in the case, brought against Bailey by the Florida Bar, ...
A referee in the case, brought against Bailey by the Florida Bar, had found numerous rules violations and recommended the disbarment. Bailey represented Duboc in a 1994 drug smuggling case and worked out a deal with prosecutors under which his client would plead guilty and forfeit all of his assets to the federal government.