The OJ Simpson Case Revisited–The Invisible Man, the Brentwood Murders and the Mobster

By Alex Constantine

I am the Invisible Man. When 60 Minutes offered $1-million to anyone who could prove that someone other than OJ Simpson committed the double murders in Brentwood, I sent the producers a fat manila envelope chock full of evidence implicating several others. The next week, 60 Minutes announced that no one had proven that anyone but OJ committed the murders.

I am "no one," so I wallowed in my nowhere land and rolled my eyes at at a disgraceful media cover-up wholly dependent on transparent perjury, planted blood evidence, and prosecutors whose lies were rewarded by multi-million dollar book contracts  and celebrity status.

I was rewarded with death threats, stalkers, and a visit from Glen "Cross-Country Killer" Rogers, who confessed to the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Rogers set fire to my apartment building in the midst of my investigation. The blaze was set ten feet from my entrance door. The fired department responded quickly, and Rogers was arrested. But the only witness who saw him enter the building fled the country, and he was let off. Rogers nearly succeeded in burning me out of my home and destroying my files on the Simpson case. My neglected report  on the "Simpson" murders was published in Virtual Government (1997) by a small press in Washington state. Not one major metro newspaper mentioned the book. I am the Invisible Man.

Rogers went on to murder a woman named Sandra Gallagher in the San Fernando Valley. He went on to slash and born women across the country. If the press had paid attention to me in 1995, his victims would still be alive. But "Marcia Clark's new hairstyle" was more newsworthy.

Wikipedia: "Some believe" -- that's me, too, I am some people, and I'm invisible so no one mentions me by name - "believe that Joey Ippolito hired a hitman who murdered Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, because: Ippolito sold cocaine in Brentwood; Nicole and Ron's friends were buying or selling cocaine (including Faye Resnick); A.C. Cowlings was Ippolito’s bodyguard; Ippolito escaped parole in Florida" -- no, no, I'm often misquoted, it was a low security prison, get it straight -- "three weeks before the famous double murder and made numerous calls to O.J. Simpson."

"Some people" reported this in a booklet. The Invisible Man devoted many hours of time and effort to produce it. The Los Angeles Times ignored it. One alternative paper in LA had a good laugh at the my expense. Everyone "knew" that Simpson was guilty. Give us a break.

Who was Joe Ippolito, anyways? Marcia Clark never mentioned his name. Neither did talk show hosts or trained news anchors with good hair. Mark Fuhrnan had found gloves. What else was there to know?

Wiki: ":'oey; Ippolito, Jr. is a drug smuggler and distributor known for his connections to celebrities and organized crime figures. His father, Joseph Ippolito, Sr., was employed by Meyer Lansky and Sam 'the Plumber' DeCalvacante.

"Word was that O.J. Simpson had financed a wholesale cocaine distributorship employing a network of Fast Eddys and aspiring celebs on the Hollywood fringe. It is said that suppliers (Messrs. Ippolito and Lorenzo?) entrusted him, over a period of several months, with a sizable quantity of cocaine, on credit. Simpson, already struggling with past debts, was financially stressed by divorce costs, and Nicole was not exactly the thriftiest of wives with her designer wardrobe and jet-set vacations ..."

"Some people" lived in LA and nosed around. So did the Simpson defense team.

"Barry Hoestler, a private investigator hired for the Simpson case by Robert Shapiro, contended that Nicole entertained the notion of becoming financially independent by opening a restaurant with Ron Goldman as her partner, and financing it with cocaine profits. Hoestler also said that Nicole and her friends were 'over their heads with some dope dealers.'"

Could this have some relation to a motive for killing Nicole besides Simpson's "jealousy?"

"As one Beverly Hills observer put it, Simpson and his circle were under intense pressure, but optimistic, entering 'a tough street business, fueled by a jolt of the goods from time to time.'"

"When Simpson’s suppliers insisted on payment, Nicole Brown-Simpson and friends suddenly found reasons to leave town. The rumor also suggests that from the start his suppliers considered Simpson a patsy. His suppliers were attempting to control him by controlling his finances. This was done by controlling the habits of Nicole’s circle. He attempted to patch up the marriage and failed."

There was a "rash of violence that occurred surrounding Nicole Brown-Simpson, Ron Goldman and the Mezzaluna restaurant," known to residents in the area as a place to buy cocaine.

"Yet another death scream resonating with Nicole’s belonged to Brett Cantor, the owner of a Hollywood nightclub called the Dragonfly. Nicole and Ron Goldman were regulars at the club. Cantor was murdered on July 30, 1993 in a vicious knife attack nearly identical to the one that dispatched Goldman."

Isn't that a coincidence?

"The club owner, too, had been cut from behind. The killer started on the lower left side of the neck, drew upward and away to the right. Both Goldman and Cantor were stabbed repeatedly on the arms and chest. In both cases, the knife had a long but thin blade. At one point, Shapiro planned to argue that the same killer was responsible for the bloody melee on Bundy, but the LAPD insisted (with psychic certainty) that there was no connection between the two cases."

We trust Mark Fuhrman and the heroes of the LAPD. They caught Simpson. Nice going.

"Not only was there Cantor, who may be remembered for having the band Rage Against the Machine on his record label. There was also Michael Nigg, a friend of both Cantor and Goldman. Goldman and Nigg worked at Mezzaluna at the same time. We also have Keith Zlombowitch, director of operations at Mezzaluna and a former lover of Nicole Brown Simpson."

Brett Cantor

"He disappeared. Another Mezzaluna employee had his car fire-bombed at around the same time."

These were the Invisible Man's words. He asked rude questions, like, "who was the suspicious individual seen loitering outside Brown-Simpsons residence the night of the murders?" This sort of thing only distracts from the prosecution's case against OJ. No one should listen to Invisible men who raise confusing questions.

"When Ippolito ;escaped' from prison" -- he simply decided to move on and walked away from the low security detention zone --"he was seen being driven away in a car driven by an African-American male. Who was this Negro? A logical suspect would be an African-American male who had been a bodyguard and driver of Ippolito, as well as a friend for up to 20 years."

He perfectly matched the description of Al C. Cowlings, O.J. Simpson's car chase pal, as reported in an AP August 1994 report.

It's sort of funny how all of these coincidences pile up and eclipse the "mountain of evidence" implicating OJ Simpson.

"That Simpson and Cowlings had more in common with Ippolitio than point spreads became evident with the arrest of Tracey Alice Hill, alias Amanda Armstrong, a 32 year-old stripper from Santa Monica, in February, 1995. Hill was nabbed by police in Dunsmuir, a small town in northern California, with a suitcase containing 40 pounds of cocaine. Police also found a vial of pills in her purse prescribed to Al Cowlings."

See what I mean? The prosecution had blood evidence. All "no one," aka "some people," had was kismet.

"Donald Re, his attorney (a former law partner of Howard Weitzman) denied any connection to Ms. Hill, but the Contra Costa Times reported that Hill’s computerized address book listed the telephone numbers of both Cowlings and Simpson (AP, 3-25-95)."

Cowlings was raising money to pay OJ's legal bills. He was a good friend. Where was the evidence of a "conspiracy?"

"When an FBI informant (Robert Franchi) made a panicked plea to the FBI about Ippolito's whereabouts, the Feds told him that they had 'allowed Ippolito to escape,' and "tracked his movements" to "learn who his contacts might be". The FBI claimed to have Ippolito on a leash and were tracing all his telephone calls."

Those calls to guilty-as-hell OJ.

"Franchi also claims that Ippolito had a 'sit-down meeting' with O.J. Simpson two weeks before the murders."

We also have this information about William Wasz, a bum hired by Robert Kardashiam to track Ms. Brown-Simpson. Mr. Wasz sent this e-mail to a local newspaper ...

"Dear Editor: Enclosed in this email is a document that claims proof that there was a conspiracy to kill Nicole Brown. I'm sending you a text version of the document followed by a scanned graphics file of the actual document. My identity has to be secret because I don't want to get anyone in trouble. But I don't trust the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office to properly investigate this information. They've known about this for too long without doing anything. It's time for the truth, whatever it is, to come out."

Why would the Feds cover up a Mafia murder? Come on. What a stretch. That doesn't make any sense. But the Invisible Man has a stupid anecdote to explain all kinds of Twilight Zone anomalies.

"Here, take a good look.' He tossed it across the desk. Chuck [Giancana, brother of the Mafia's Sam Giancana], caught the coin and instantly realized it was old, ancient in fact. Chuck fingered the coin, turning it over and over again, and then tossed it back to his brother. Mooney [Sam Giancana] leaned forward. 'Look, this is one of the Roman gods. This one has two faces, two sides. That's what we are, the Outfit and the CIA... two sides of the same coin." - Sam (Jr.) and Chuck Giancana"

"No one" wrote that Joey Ippolito's father, Joseph Ippolito, Sr., "was in the pay of the syndicate’s Meyer Lansky, and a soldier of Sam 'the Plumber' DeCalvacante, who brought Joey into the league. 'Little Man' Lansky, of course, was no homunculus. He led the mob into an alliance with the intelligence sector of government in WW II, and loomed above much the Combination until his death in 1983."

What a ludicrous conspiracy theory, said the people at 60 Minutes. No one proved that anyone other than Simpson was guilty of the murders. Who else? There are no other suspects. It was OJ. We bet a million dollars on it, and no one proved otherwise.

So Where is Ipplito Today?

Joey was Hit by the Great Equalizer

After the Brentwood murders, the FBI swept Joey up and moved him into a swank New York hotel. You would think, after his 1992 conviction on cocaine trafficking charges, "escape" from prison and interactions with OJ Simpson's clique before Nicole and Ron were hit, that he would be taken into custody and locked behind bars, grilled over the murders on Bundy. But, no, he was cabbaged away at taxpayer's expense in luxurious hotel suite under FBI protection. Joey was tapped, a valued, well-paid informant. I seriously doubt that he snitched on the killers of mobbed-up speed boat builder Donald Aronow (Google it). Or that he squealed on F. Lee Bailey, an attorney in business with Joey's Miami police chief pal, Dick "One Eye" Gerstein. Or that he spilled his guts about the Mezzaluna murders. Or turned on Alex Marti, Joey's Argentine cocaine-trafficking underling, a Hitler-loving serial killer from New York and still a key suspected accomplice in the Son of Sam murders. OJ's friend Al Cowlings was sitting on Ippolito's couch when his boss was arrested in Malibu. You'd think the FBI would charge him under RICO with cocaine dealing, assisting Ippolito in the prison "escape," and that attempt to help OJ emigrate before the LAPD took him into custody. Ah, well, da bum croaked and worms are his only pals now. So young, too.

Joseph Ippolito Obituary
New Jersey Star-Ledger, Dec 1, 2021

IPPOLITO Joseph A. Ippolito Jr. Restaurateur, 56 Joseph A. Ippolito Jr., 56, of Boca Raton, Fla., formerly of Roseland, died at home on Tuesday, Dec. 19. The funeral will be held from the Quinn-Hopping Funeral Home of Livingston, 145 E. Mount Pleasant Ave., on Saturday, Dec. 23, at 8 a.m. followed by a Funeral Mass at St. Philomena R.C. Church, Livingston, at 9 a.m. Interment is in Holy Cross Cemetery, North Arlington. Visitation is Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. Mr. Ippolito was a self-employed restaurateur in the Florida area for many years. He was also a well-known offshore power boat racer. He was the beloved husband of Nicole (nee Alexander); devoted father of Natalie and Joey; dear brother of Louis, Paul, Samuel, John, Fred, Anthony and Betty Ann and the late Robert Ippolito.