'Hush money' claim follows Simpson project cancellation

[SoCalDem]

That Rupert..Isn't he a peach?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/11/22/hush_money_claim_follows_simpson_project_cancellation/
'Hush money' claim follows Simpson project cancellation

Victim's sister says they were offered profits

By Joseph P. Kahn and David Mehegan, Globe Staff | November 22, 2006

Fallout from the canceled book and TV interview by O.J. Simpson continued yesterday with Simpson's former sister-in-law saying that millions of dollars in "hush money" had been offered to the murder victims' families by executives at News Corp., the corporate parent of Fox Broadcasting and HarperCollins Books.

Appearing on the "Today" show yesterday, Denise Brown said the offer had been rejected prior to Monday's announcement that the Simpson book and broadcast had both been scrapped.

"They wanted to offer us millions of dollars. Millions of dollars for, like, 'Oh, I'm sorry' money. But they were still going to air the show," Brown said. "We just thought, 'Oh my God.' What they're trying to do is trying to keep us quiet, trying to make this like hush money, trying to go around the civil verdict, giving us this money to keep our mouths shut."

News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher confirmed yesterday that meetings had taken place over the past week or two among senior executives at the media company and the Brown and Goldman families. The company offered the families profits from the Simpson projects. However, Butcher said, at no time were the families pressured to keep silent in exchange for the money .

"It was quite the opposite, really," he said by phone from New York. "We're smart enough to know that wouldn't work. And it was explicit in talking to the Goldman family in particular that they still found deplorable. We canceled it instead."

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