Friend Taped Meetings With Simpson

Sept. 18, 2007 — -- A friend of O.J. Simpson's says he helped Simpson plan the confrontation that led to the alleged armed robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas this weekend.

Tom Riccio says he and Simpson went over details about an hour before the vigilante-style raid and Riccio says he taped his meeting with Simpson — a poor-quality recording acquired by ABC News.

Simpson can be heard saying he wanted to recover his memorabilia in Nevada, away from the family of the murdered Ron Goldman, who have a lien on most of Simpson's earnings.

"I'm going to show up with a bunch of the boys, and take my [expletive] and they can't do nothing about it," Simpson says on the tape.

Riccio says he had no idea guns would be present.

"There was no real plan. There was some memorabilia that belonged to him that was stolen and he was just gonna go pick it up," Riccio said.

"O.J. was gonna identify the items as being his, and tell 'em he wanted 'em back or we were gonna call the police."

But Riccio says everything, including Simpson's demeanor, changed when he and his entourage entered the hotel room to confront the memorabilia salesmen.

"O.J. was enraged. He wasn't calm like he said he was gonna be," Riccio said. "It was just a crazy scene and one of the guys took out a gun eventually."

While Simpson was not carrying a gun, Riccio says the former gridiron star was the one behind the raid.

"O.J. was definitely in charge. He was ordering people around, ordering that nobody leave the room. He's the one that ordered the guys to take the phones, and he was definitely in charge of everything that was going on there in the room," Riccio said.

Simpson was in Las Vegas to serve as the best man in the wedding of golfing buddy Thomas Scotto.

"We wanted it to be private," Scotto said. "It's a special day."

The weekend turned out to be anything but.

Walter Alexander, who also went to the wedding and was arrested in connection with the robbery, said that he believes Simpson was set up.

"Because the whole thing was recorded," Alexander told ABC News' "Good Morning America." "Sounds like a setup to me."