O J Simpson Held Over Theft As 'confession' is Published

The strange life of Orenthal James Simpson took another turn yesterday when the former American football star, actor and murder suspect was detained by police in Las Vegas in connection with a hotel room break-in.

O J, as he is better known, was released but named as a suspect in the theft of sports memorabilia from a room at the slightly down-at-heel Palace Station Casino.

"When they talked to him, Simpson made the comment that he believed the memorabilia was his," a Las Vegas police spokesman said. "We're getting conflicting stories from the two sides."

Simpson is believed to have remained in Las Vegas and was not considered a flight risk. The spokesman said: "We don't believe he's going anywhere."

The former sports hero, who is hampered by debts arising from the $34m (£17m) civil judgment against him in a wrongful death suit following the death of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, in 1994 has auctioned off several of the trophies he won as a football star.

The incident came the day after Simpson's much-discussed hypothetical confession to the killings of his wife and her friend Ron Goldman was published. If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer was published by a small New York publishing house, Beaufort Books, with profits going to the Goldman family.

The book caused controversy last year when it was announced that it would be published by Regan Books, a division of Harper Collins. An interview with Simpson conducted by Judith Regan and scheduled to be broadcast on the Fox network was canceled after an outcry and allegations that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which owns Fox and Harper Collins, was profiting from the murders.

The family of Ron Goldman obtained the rights to the book following a ruling in a Florida bankruptcy court. The family's decision to publish the book has set it at odds with the family of Nicole Brown.

The book, which runs to 60,000 words, was ghostwritten by Pablo Fenjves, who was also a neighbor of Brown Simpson and attained brief notoriety during the trial for his vivid description of hearing the "plaintive wail" of her dog on the night of the murder. In his foreword to the book he describes how Ms Regan told him that the book was not hypothetical.

"He wants to confess, and I'm being assured it's a confession. But this is the only way he'll do it," she told Mr Fenjves.

Simpson was due to give a deposition yesterday in Miami in a bankruptcy case involving his daughter.