OJ’s last defender works above a hair salon
The illustrious career of attorney F Lee Bailey is in tatters. He filed for bankruptcy last year, and experts say it’s all because of his infamous former client, Simpson
ON THURSDAY, OJ Simpson – the National Fo o t b a l l League icon of more than two decades ago – had a parole board in Carson City, Nevada, vote unanimously to curtail his 33-year prison sentence for kidnapping and ar med robbery, stemming f rom a confrontation over sports memorabilia in Las Vegas in 2007.
The football le gend, now 70 years old, could be released as soon as October 1.
But of all the characters who played a role in Simpson’s unforgettable acquittal for the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, no one’s life has changed as dramatically as F Lee Bailey’s. By changed, we mean cratered.
Bailey j oined Simpson’s defence 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 s c ore s of ot her accused murderers.
He was rich, flew on private jets and even played himself in a movie.
Today he lives with a hairstylist in Maine. At 83, he works above her salon.
“I won’t say it’s depressing, because I don’t think I ever get depressed,” Bailey told writer Andrew Goldman in a remarkable profile this month in Town & Country magazine. The story details Bailey’s life post-OJ – not just his remarkable fall but also his steadfast belief that a Los Angeles jury reached the correct verdict in acquitting the actor and Hertz pitchman of killing Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Last year Bailey filed for bankruptcy after a string of scandals inside and outside the courtroom left him disbarred and shamed.
He was accused of misappropriating funds from his defence of an alle ged drug dealer.
Here’s what he had left: a 1999 Mercedes station wagon (gold, of course).
Unable t o practise l aw, Bailey runs a consulting business above the salon.
His office is decorated with models of jets he once owned.
But to the fine people of Yar mouth, Maine, Bailey is sti l l f amous, a cour t room le gend in their midst.
The Town & Country writer had lunch there with Bailey, who ordered a pinot grigio.
Bailey tried to retur n to the courtroom, but he has been tur ned down, even after passing the bar exam not long ago in Maine.
His old lawyer pals, includi ng Alan Dershowitz, have a not- so- complicated l e g al theory about why: OJ.
“Without a doubt,” Dershowitz told Town & Country. “I think it was a major factor in the vindictive way in which he’s been treated.”
Bailey won’t object to that one.
“People at every l evel, judges on down, pointed the finger and said: ‘If you hadn’t prostituted your talents for this guy, he would have gone to jail’,” he told Town & Country.
Bailey used t o kee p i n t ouch with Simpson, who would call to chat about life and, l ater, f rom j ail, about how t o get out. And t hen suddenly, after Simpson was convicted in the Nevada case, the calls stopped.
“He says he was told that Si mpson was war ned by prison of ficials to steer clear of Bailey if he wanted to get on the good side of the parole board,” Town & Country reported.
Accused murderers used to walk free with Bailey at their side. Now they have a better chance if he stays just where he is, above the salon.
Next to him sits Debbie Elliot, his girlfriend of seven years. “A pretty good-looking 62,” he remarks, an accurate assessment of the curvaceous salon owner, who is dressed in head- to- toe black, her platinum blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Bailey, who in the 1970s wore si debur ns so bushy they resembled a barrister’s wig, now has thin white hair clipped close to the scalp, a side- ef f ect of cohabitation with a hairdresser. – The Washington Post