Writer forced back into O.J. spotlight

LOS ANGELES — Amid the fallout and finger-pointing surrounding O.J. Simpson's hypothetical confession "If I Did It," there's one man who knows everything but has said nothing: ghostwriter and longtime Los Angeles-based screenwriter Pablo Fenjves.

He was Nicole Brown Simpson's neighbor and a witness at the 1995 murder trial, the man who famously testified he heard a dog's "plaintive wail" the night Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were slain, the wail being a key plot point in the prosecution's case. Fenjves is at the center of the Simpson saga again, muzzled by a confidentiality agreement and hounded by the media and movie producers eager to tell his story.

It's a familiar, perhaps nostalgic, place for Fenjves, 53, a bookish sort who during the Simpson trial couldn't step outside his apartment without being recognized by tourists or approached by reporters.

But in the past 11 years, he drifted back into the periphery of fame, penning books for Bernie Mac; Amber Frey, former girlfriend of murderer Scott Peterson; and model-turned-reality-show star Janice Dickinson, among others.

Fenjves never confirmed he was Simpson's ghostwriter to The National Enquirer, which five weeks ago named him in the story that broke the news of the ReganBooks/HarperCollins book.

In the weeks since, his name has resurfaced in several New York newspapers, including the New York Post. The New York Daily News quoted him as saying ghostwriters were "contractually barred" from talking about their projects. In a New Yorker article that appeared online last week, he was quoted seemingly justifying having taken the job.

"I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a reporter in this country who, given the opportunity to sit down and take a confession from O.J. Simpson, no matter how oblique, would have refused to do so," Fenjves told New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin.

Fenjves, who as a writer has toiled in anonymity for much of his career, is reaching an almost surreal career high with a work he cannot claim as his own.

Though News Corp. — owner of ReganBooks, HarperCollins and Fox News — canceled the publication Monday and a Fox interview that was set to promote it, several copies popped up on eBay two days later with one bid reaching $1 million. By Friday, however, all copies had been withdrawn from the site.

In another twist, Simpson seems to be blaming Fenjves for the fact the public views "If I Did It" as a confession. In a radio interview, Simpson suggested the detail in the book about the night of the slayings indicates Fenjves committed the crimes.

"When I saw what he wrote, I said, 'Maybe you did it because they're saying the chapter contains things only the killer would know,' " Simpson said on WTPS-AM in Miami. "I don't know these things."

Fenjves had no comment Friday.

"I'm really sorry," he said. "I can't talk to you. I can't even talk to the movie producers who have been calling."

His comments about Simpson to The New York Times in 1995 resonate today. When asked where his sympathies lie, Fenjves responded: "That's like asking me, 'Do I think O.J. did it?' I have an opinion on that, but I don't think it would be wise to express it."

Acquitted of murder in 1995, Simpson was found liable in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Goldman's family. The former football star has not paid the $33.5 million civil judgment, and his NFL pension and Florida home cannot be seized.

Although Fenjves' role in the scuttled Simpson book remains mysterious, this much is known: He's an active part of Judith Regan's stable of writers, with three titles at ReganBooks this year, and a player in the world of gossip journalism and ghostwriting.

Mike Walker, a gossip columnist at The Enquirer, remembers him at the tabloid in the 1970s as a young, hard-working reporter with writing talent. Before news of "If I Did It" broke, Walker interviewed Fenjves on his radio show. Fenjves told him ghostwriting was the best of all worlds for a writer. It provided steady, lucrative pay and uncomplicated work.

Fenjves was born in Venezuela and speaks Spanish and French

He met Regan when both were reporters at The National Enquirer. When she opened her own imprint in the mid-1990s, Fenjves became one of her stars and an obvious choice to ghostwrite "If I Did It," for which he was reportedly paid $100,000 for two to three months of work.

For now, Fenjves remains holed up in his Brentwood home — the same one he was in when Nicole Simpson was killed — fending off reporters who are awaiting the conclusion to the newest chapter of the Simpson drama.

Ironically, when he was interviewed recently on Los Angeles' KABC-AM, Fenjves said one of the perks of his job was anonymity.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.