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Report Alleges Mob-Linked Associate Aided Simpson on Night of 1994 Murders
A New York Times investigation based on newly unsealed federal records and a brother's account alleges that Joseph "Joey" Ippolito, a mob-connected drug trafficker, may have helped O.J. Simpson dispose of evidence after the 1994 killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The account has drawn scrutiny, and former prosecutors dispute its significance.
A convicted drug trafficker with reported ties to organized crime may have assisted O.J. Simpson in the hours after the 1994 stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, according to a New York Times investigation that draws on previously sealed federal court records and an account from the man's brother.
The newspaper reported that Joseph «Joey» Ippolito, a longtime associate of Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings, returned to a Los Angeles apartment around midnight on June 12, 1994, carrying a bag that appeared to hold a heavy object. His brother, Sam Ippolito, told the Times that Joey had blood on his hands, stuffed his clothes into the bag and instructed Sam to throw it away while he showered. Sam Ippolito said he disposed of the bag in a dumpster near a construction site along Doheny Drive.
Sam Ippolito also claimed he overheard his brother tell Cowlings by phone that he had been «helping» Simpson that night. Cowlings did not respond to the newspaper's request for comment before publication.
The investigation also uncovered a December 1996 federal prosecution memorandum, unsealed at the newspaper's request, that described Joey Ippolito as a valuable informant who provided information about Simpson's alleged efforts to dispose of the murder weapon, which was never recovered, and about his attempted flight from authorities. Then-federal prosecutor David Kelley called Ippolito a «remarkable source of information» whose cooperation proved useful to investigators. Kelley told the Times recently that he did not believe Ippolito was involved in the killings.
Joey Ippolito had escaped from a Florida prison in May 1994 and became a federal informant after his arrest in August 1995, as Simpson's televised murder trial was nearing its end. The records indicate his information was shared with Los Angeles prosecutors during the trial, though he was never called to testify. Former prosecutor Marcia Clark told the Times she had no knowledge of Ippolito and said she would have been informed if he had provided credible or relevant evidence.
The account from Sam Ippolito has itself come under scrutiny. After maintaining his allegations for months, he reportedly sought compensation from the Times and later tried to retract his statements, saying he could no longer distinguish what was real from what was not. Friends and relatives of Joey Ippolito, who died in 2006, have disputed suggestions that he took part in the murders.
The disclosures raise fresh questions about whether Simpson had help on the night Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed outside her Los Angeles home. Simpson was acquitted of the murders in 1995 but was later found liable for the deaths in a civil trial. He died in April 2024 at age 76. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed to the Times that the decades-old case remains an open investigation.
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