Hard times for Simpson as bank calls him to account

OJ Simpson will face the ultimate indignity of being turfed out of his Los Angeles mansion if he does not come up with mortgage arrears in the next three months, it emerged yesterday.

A mortgage company has started foreclosure proceedings against the former footballer and film actor because he has missed $86,000 in payments on his mansion in the exclusive suburb of Brentwood, according to yesterday's New York Post.

Under California law, Simpson has 90 days to pay the money he owes to Hawthorne Savings, which financed the house. If he does not pay, the company has the right to sell the property at an advertised public auction.

The exclusive address - 360 Rockingham Avenue - means the two-storey Tudor-style mansion, complete with driveway flanked by 2ft-high statues of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, would fetch millions.

In 1995, Simpson was cleared in criminal court in 1995 on charges of stabbing to death his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles, in June 1994. But he was held liable for the deaths in civil court this year.

The selling of the mansion would, however, be complicated by the $19m suit that Ron Goldman's father has filed against Simpson's home. Fred Goldman, who pursued the case against Simpson a in civil court after his acquittal on criminal charges, wants any money from the sale of the house to go toward the $19m a civil jury awarded him in damages after finding that Simpson was responsible for the deaths.

Mr Goldman's lawyer, Peter Gelblum, was quoted as saying that the mortgage company would have first option on the Brentwood estate.

A review of court records showed Goldman was about 10th in line of creditors to whom Simpson was indebted, the list includes the lawyers who represented Simpson in both the criminal and civil trials.