LA Times obit for OJ Simpson goes viral after mistaking him for Trump

The gargantuan gaffe is going viral in America just hours after the death of disgraced gridiron great and actor OJ Simpson.

The Los Angeles Times has been mocked for an excruciating error in its OJ Simpson obituary after suggesting that former President Donald Trump had served the accused murderer’s prison sentence.

“Long before the city woke up on a fall morning in 2017, Trump walked out of Lovelock Correctional Center outside Reno, a free man for the first time in nine years,” the paper wrote, somehow mistaking the presidential nominee for the disgraced ex-NFL player.

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“He didn’t go far, moving into 5,000-square-foot home in Vegas, with a Bentley in the driveway,” the obituary added.

The embarrassing blunder was later corrected and Trump’s name was replaced with that of Simpson, who died of cancer this week at the age of 76.

Defendant O.J. Simpson (C) cheers while standing with his attorneys F. Lee Bailey (L) and Johnnie Cochan Jr (R), after hearing his not guilty verdict. (Photo by Agence France Presse/Getty Images)

In an editor’s note, the LA Times wrote: “An earlier version of this obituary incorrectly contained a typographical error that used the wrong name when describing Simpson leaving Lovelock Correctional Center.

“The error has been corrected,” it said.

But the news outlet was roundly derided online for its gargantuan gaffe.

“LA Times typo in OJ’s obit: according to L.A. Times writer Elaine Woo, O.J. Simpson was arrested for robbery, but it was Donald Trump who served time for nine years,” wrote Katy Grimes, editor of the California Globe.

“Members of the media are just itching to write stories about Trump being found guilty and going to prison,’” she added.

Republican strategist Steve Guest wrote: “Unbelievable. The LA Times is out of control.”

And GOP rapid research director Jake Schneider added: “And I bet they still won’t understand why trust in media is at an all-time low.”

Former U.S. President Donald Trump was accidentally named in the report. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP

Simpson served time at Lovelock for his role in a 2007 robbery in which he and a group of armed men broke into a hotel room at Las Vegas’ Palace Station Hotel Casino and confronted a pair of sports memorabilia dealers, claiming they were in possession of his stolen memorabilia.

The disgraced gridiron great, who died of prostate cancer on Thursday (AEST), was famously acquitted on criminal charges that he killed his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.

He was later found liable in a civil suit and ordered to pay the families US$33.5 million in damages.

Dodgy way OJ screwed his victims over again

OJ Simpson was screwing the families of his victims ’til the very end, it seems.

The fallen football star was famously acquitted for the 1994 murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

But the year after his 1995 criminal trial, he was found liable for both deaths in civil court, and he was supposed to pay the families $33 million in damages.

Most of his income was supposed to go toward paying off the vast sum.

But Page Six is told that Simpson made a decent living after his 2017 release from jail on an unrelated charge — but paid the Brown and Goldman families virtually nothing by running a substantial ring of all-cash business dealings.

We’re told that the one-time NFL and Hollywood star mostly made his money by doing private autograph signings and demanding stacks of bills for things like podcast appearances — and even charging people to play golf with him.

OJ Simpson and the late Nicole Brown Simpson with their two children, Sydney and Justin. Picture: Supplied

Fred Goldman, father of Ron Goldman being hugged by lawyer Daniel Petrocelli following guilty verdict in OJ Simpson wrongful death civil trial 04 Feb 1997.

“He would sign anything except anything that had to do with the trial or murder,” we’re told. “The stipulation was always that he had to be paid in cash.”

Simpson, who died Wednesday after a battle with prostate cancer, still owed a massive amount of money to the family.

In fact, we’re told he had only paid $123,000 of the balance.

“With being paid everything in cash, there was no way to document how much money he had access to,” we’re told.

Simpson’s Heisman Trophy was sold off to help settle the debt, and proceeds from his abandoned book, “If I Did It,” might also have made a dent in it.

But any serious earning power he might have had came to an end with his 2008 conviction for armed robbery related to a dispute over sports memorabilia.

The disgraced star died owing close to $100m. AFP PHOTO / POOL / Jason Bean

OJ did everything to ensure he didn’t have to pay his victims. (Photo by Vince BUCCI / AFP)

Goldman family lawyer David Cook told the Daily Mail that Simpson had failed to pay off the full amount over the decades, with the sum ballooning to more than $100 million.

“We have to start over here,” Cook said in response to Simpson’s death. “We’re going to work on that. There might be something out there.”

“We’ve had this problem for a long long time,” he added. “It could be in a trust, it could be probate. It could be all gone.”

Divorce filings obtained by the Washington Post when Simpson split with Nicole Brown Simpson in 1992 put his net worth at $10 million.

Reports following his death suggested Simpson’s fortune may have whittled down to around $3 million.

- This article first appeared in the New York Post and was republished with permission

Originally published as LA Times obit for OJ Simpson goes viral after mistaking him for Trump