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Fred Goldman on Cochran: "He is sick'

 
Published Sept. 29, 1995|Updated Oct. 4, 2005

The father of murder victim Ronald Goldman lashed out Thursday at O. J. Simpson's lead attorney over his comparison of a disgraced detective in the case to Adolf Hitler.

"This man (lead attorney Johnnie Cochran) is the worst kind of human being imaginable," said Fred Goldman, shaking with anger. "He compares racism of the worst kind in this world to what's going on in this case. . . . This man is sick. He is absolutely sick."

Simpson has pleaded not guilty to murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Goldman, who were stabbed to death outside her townhouse on June 12, 1994.

Cochran, in his closing arguments to the jury Thursday, said what frightened him about retired Detective Mark Fuhrman, who lied on the witness stand about making racist comments, was that he was a police officer sworn to uphold the law.

He said Hitler was allowed to rise to power because, as with Fuhrman, no one tried to stop him.

That made Goldman, a Jew, livid. Standing before the microphone on the first floor of the criminal courts building, his voice shaking, he said, "This man . . . compares what Mark Fuhrman did to misery from the beginnings of history.

"This man ought to be ashamed of himself to walk amongst decent human beings. This man is a disgrace to human beings."

When Goldman's wife, Patti, tried gently to persuade him he had said enough, he shrugged her off. He then attacked Cochran, whose life reportedly has been threatened, for surrounding himself with bodyguards from the Nation of Islam, which in the past has been accused of anti-Semitism.

"He's talking about racism and he talks about hate. Who does he connect himself with?" Goldman asked.

Saying Cochran was "one of the most disgusting human beings" he had ever had to listen to, Goldman went on:

"He suggests that because of racism we should put aside all other thoughts, all other reasons, and set his murdering client free. He's a sick man. He ought to be put away."