Legal swamp makes Florida a perfect home for O.J.

Web-posted: Tuesday, March 4, 1997

f O.J. Simpson is really planning to leave California and move to Florida, the question many people ask is, why?

True, Florida has year-round sunshine, but so does Southern California.

Simpson is still a celebrity, possibly with greater name recognition than he's ever had. If celebrities like hanging around with other celebrities, California would have the edge, since it is richly endowed with those who get their mugs in People magazine.

On the other hand, some celebrities can be fussy about who they invite for dips in their pools.

Simpson, unmarried and a handsome cad, would probably find more willing lovelies in California, with its wealth of wannabe starlets. Although Florida has its share of tan-lined bikini beauties, it also has a surplus of blue hair and varicose veins.

The beaches would be a tossup. California has a more thrilling surf, but Florida waters aren't as cold.

And for a golfer such as O.J., Florida might have the advantage because it offers far more resort and daily-fee courses, which he'll have to be content with unless he can find a private club that isn't fussy about notoriety.

It can't be that he is trying to escape a voracious West Coast media because Florida's media can be just as shark-like. Just ask Gary Hart.

But the real reason Simpson is rumored to be planning a move is that he is not stupid, as he has proven to the Los Angeles law-enforcement community.

His probable motive for changing ZIP codes was summed up neatly in a recent editorial in the Tampa Tribune:

"Florida rolls out the red carpet for people running from huge debts. It's a deadbeat's paradise.

"Florida has the most generous, unfair, corrupting bankruptcy laws in the nation. The advantages Simpson would enjoy here are obscene.

"For one thing, there is no limit on the value of one's `homestead,' which is protected under the state law. Simpson would be able to sell his Brentwood estate and use much of whatever money his lawyers have not collected to buy some palatial digs ... thus blocking efforts of the survivors of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson to collect on his liability for those murders.

"... If he stays in California, creditors can garnishee his wages. In Florida, the head of the household is exempt from garnishment.

"In Florida, Simpson can build a home worth millions of dollars on as much as 160 acres outside of town, or half an acre inside city limits, and can stash millions of dollars in various forms of savings. He can possess other assets and sources of income worth a fortune and still declare himself legally insolvent.''

The editorial then went on to fume about the injustice of it all and called on the Florida legislature to change the state's bankruptcy laws so they no longer "benefit the wealthy and the dishonest ... allow people with huge debts to walk away from banks, businesses and individuals who lent them money or provided them with services.''

It warned that unless something is done, "as a result of our state's eagerness to make itself a haven for reprobates, Florida could soon become an international disgrace for providing a legal shelter to allow Simpson to dodge his obligation to pay, at least monetarily, for his liability in the deaths of two people. It is now bad enough that Florida cheerfully accepts the ill-gotten gains of deadbeats and flimflam artists. Now it is poised to help launder the bloodstains out of Simpson's fortune.''

Florida, since its earliest days, has been a haven for all sorts of scoundrels, villains and reprobates.

The swamps and mangrove islands used to attract hordes of thieves, cutthroats and skull crackers who built shacks and hid from Northern lawmen.

Even today, fishing guides like to point out the tails of abandoned small airplanes sticking out of shallow waters where pilots splashed down before unloading fortunes in drugs.

Speaking of fishing guides, there have been times when you have had a hard time hiring one in Florida, so busy were they with the more lucrative business of making runs to bring back a catch you could sniff, snort or mix in chocolate cookies.

As the late John D. McDonald enjoyed noting in his wonderful Travis McGee novels, if it could walk, talk, steal, swindle or connive, it probably ended up in Florida--and maybe as a leading citizen.

So what are a few deadbeats and flimflam artists, one way or another? For Florida to deny O.J. a chance to duck his legal responsibilities is for Florida to deny its colorful history.

One small and wealthy community has been in a civic tizzy because a rumor went around that O.J. was buying a $2 million-plus mansion in its midst.

Since when have wealthy Floridians cared how a man made his bundle or what his character was so long as he could afford a mansion?

When Al Capone got out of prison after being railroaded by the federal government, he retired to a lovely home in Miami. His neighbors didn't make a fuss about him. Not if they valued their kneecaps.

For his part, O.J. indignantly says he is tired of hearing from Florida real estate agents for him to come to their part of the state and buy, buy, buy.

That shows that some Floridians haven't denied their heritage.

© 1996 Chicago Tribune