OJ Simpson Mired in Vegas Scam After 'confession' Published

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

OJ, as he is better known, was released but named as a suspect in the theft of sports memorabilia at the slightly down-at-heel Palace Station Casino. Simpson said that he had mounted a sting operation by going to the hotel room to retrieve memorabilia belonging to him.

He was tipped off by an auction house owner, Tom Riccio, that items were being sold. Simpson said he met Riccio in Las Vegas when visiting for a wedding. Riccio arranged to meet the sellers by pretending a collector was interested in buying. "We walked into the room," Simpson told the Associated Press. "I'm the last one to go in and when they see me, it's all 'Oh God'."

Simpson was accompanied in his act of derring-do by several men he met at the wedding. The victim reported the incident as an armed robbery, although Simpson denied any weapons were involved.

"Everybody knows this is stolen stuff," said Simpson. "Not only wasn't there a break-in, but Riccio escorted us up to the room. In any event, it's stolen stuff that's mine. Nobody was roughed up."

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

If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer is published by a small New York house, Beaufort Books, with profits going to the Goldman family. The book caused controversy last year when it was announced it would be published by a division of Harper Collins.

An interview conducted by Judith Regan and scheduled to be broadcast on the Fox network was canceled after an outcry and claims that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which owns Fox and Harper Collins, was profiting from murder.

The Goldman family obtained the book rights book through a Florida bankruptcy court; their decision to publish has set them at odds with the Brown family. The book is ghostwritten by Pablo Fenjves, a neighbor of Brown. In his foreword he claims Ms Regan told him 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.