Defendant: Guns Were OJ's Idea

Charles “Chuck” Cashmore told NBC’s Matt Lauer on the Today Show that OJ Simpson is the one who asked his co-defendants to bring guns with them when Simpson and a few associates allegedly robbed two sports memorabilia dealers at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas in early September.

Cashmore was one of the “associates” who accompanied Simpson on the botched mission to rescue some of OJ’s memorabilia that he claims were rightfully his. The accompanying photo shows a football that was one of the items that OJ allegedly stole from the hotel room.

OJ claims that the memorabilia was stolen from him years ago, and he was merely retrieving his own property. The Las Vegas police have a different view of the “retrieval” and have charged Simpson with two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary with a deadly weapon and kidnapping.

Cashmore claims to have only met Simpson that very day saying, “I did not know Mr. Simpson before that evening. A mutual friend of ours asked me if I wanted to meet the gentleman. I just had a cocktail with him and it went from there.”

NBC reports that Cashmore has pled guilty to being an accessory to a robbery and is cooperating with the prosecuting attorneys. If Cashmore testifies that the guns were OJ’s idea, that could prove to be one important nail in Simpson’s coffin. Simpson initially claimed that there were no guns involved in the alleged robbery.

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