The most fascinating story to appear anywhere this week is this incredible New York Times piece that, amazingly, added another layer to the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The Times makes a convincing case that O.J. Simpson had an accessory after the fact who helped him stash evidence, including the murder weapon.
A decades-old document filed in an unrelated, obscure criminal case in New York—recently unsealed at the request of The Times—outlines the account of a prized informant who came forward with tantalizing information while Mr. Simpson’s 1995 murder trial was proceeding. The informant—a man considered “extremely reliable” by a veteran federal prosecutor and praised heartily by a longtime federal judge—was an associate of Mr. Simpson and a close friend of Mr. Simpson’s confidant, Al Cowlings. As part of his sweeping cooperation deal with law enforcement, the informant shared information about the supposed location of the murder weapon and the efforts to dispose of it. The document outlines the broad nature of what the informant offered prosecutors, but does not specify what he said, or to what degree he implicated himself or others.
The accomplice, according to the NYT was a peripatetic wiseguy named Joey Ippolito, a career drug dealer who seems to have stepped into this case straight out of a George V. Higgins novel.
He was a mafia associate, a serial felon, a prison escapee—and a friend of Mr. Simpson. The story of the New Jersey native’s high-flying life and his link to the Simpson case, were they not buttressed by police reports, court files, and interviews, might seem too fantastical to be true.
They got that right. Ippolito's wanderings through the criminal justice system include his doing time for his part in a massive drug sting, after which he turned up in Los Angeles, where he befriended future O.J. getaway driver Al Cowlings. Ippolito opened a restaurant and also went back into the drug business, catering to a high tone L.A. clientele, until he got busted again. This time he was sentenced to 10 years in a minimum-security facility in Florida. He simply walked away from a work detail, climbed into a car from a service he'd called, and drove away in what Ippolito's lawyer called an escape by private limo.
I can't really do justice to the details of the rest of this story. Suffice it to say that investigators working Ippolito's disappearance finally tracked him down through his friendship with Cowlings. The bust was, well, unique.
Then, as Mr. Cuff assessed a network of pager activity, he identified one likely belonging to Mr. Ippolito. Marshals made plans to apprehend him when he went to get the pager serviced at a store in New York’s Little Italy. They staked out the store for days until they saw a man who looked like Joey. Instead of a balding head, however, the man had flowing hair. Still, they closed in.
“Joe,” Mr. Cuff said to the man. “What do you mean? Who?” the man replied.
“What’s with this?” Mr. Cuff said, snatching at the man’s hair and pulling off Mr. Ippolito’s toupee. The escapee simply smiled, Mr. Cuff recalled, as he was brought back into custody.
At which point, Ippolito embarked on a third career: that of a government snitch. Apparently, he was more successful in that career than he had been in either of the other two. But his first account as a government snitch was to tell investigators about how he'd helped O.J. Simpson stash the murder weapon, which is one helluva debut performance, one has to admit. I will leave the subsequent machinations to your reading pleasure. As the kidz say, read the whole thing.