Inside the O.J. Simpson Book Battle

June 20, 2007 — -- One of the most bitter and bizarre legal battles over a book in recent memory is threatening to become even more complicated after the apparent leak of some of the bloodiest sections of O.J. Simpson's still-unpublished "If I Did It."

Attorneys for the family of murder victim Ron Goldman are demanding that the tabloid Web site TMZ.com be held in contempt for publishing the book's juiciest excerpts. Goldman's father alleges that they were released by Simpson's team in order to "diminish [the] value" of the book.

The families of Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson, Simpson's ex-wife, who was found murdered with Goldman, were granted the rights to the book just last week.

At an emergency hearing Wednesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol said he would schedule a hearing later on whether to hold TMZ in contempt and suggested that the company could eventually be held financially liable for any violation.

TMZ has not said how it "obtained'' a copy of the manuscript, but Simpson told The Associated Press Wednesday he had nothing to do with the posting of the manuscript.

Attorneys for TMZ say the company did nothing wrong and that the excerpts were only posted briefly — although excerpts remained on the Web site Wednesday afternoon.

The development followed a nine month, tit-for-tat legal chess game in which Goldman's family morphed from ardent opponent of the book's publication to its most vocal publicist. Simpson has traveled far from his original position on "If I Did It."

Simpson was found not guilty of the murders of his ex-wife and Goldman in 1995. A civil court jury later found him liable for their deaths in 1997, and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages to the families of the victims. Both families claim they have seen virtually none of that money, which has ballooned with interest, according to lawyers for the families.

In the expletive-packed excerpts, Simpson writes of squaring off with Goldman while nearby, a bleeding, barely conscious Nicole Brown Simpson moans as her life drains away.