F. Lee Bailey: Where is he now?
F. Lee Bailey (left) during the 1994 O.J. Simpson trial. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)
F. Lee Bailey is broke and working as a consultant above the hair salon of his girlfriend.
The Washington Post has that summary of Bailey’s life, gleaned from a profile in Town & Country magazine. Bailey was one of the lawyers on O.J. Simpson’s defense team in 1995 when the former National Football League superstar was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
Bailey, 83, was disbarred for his handling of stock owned by a drug-smuggler client and filed for bankruptcy in 2016. He filed for bankruptcy again in June to create a payment plan for debts he couldn’t discharge in last year’s bankruptcy, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News reported.
Today, he lives with hairstylist Debbie Elliott, his girlfriend of seven years, and runs a consulting business above the salon in Yarmouth, Maine.
The consulting business is called Bailey & Elliott. The business website says services include advice on starting a new company and raising funds, evaluating corporate operations, and troubleshooting problems. Guidance on polygraph testing is also offered.
Bailey often offers advice to his clients while Elliott cuts their hair, according to the magazine article. “It’s very convenient,” he tells the Town & Country reporter during a lunchtime interview.
Another member of Simpson’s so-called “dream team” of defense lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, stands up for Bailey in an interview with Town & Country. “It’s a terrible tragedy,” Dershowitz says. He believes Bailey is suffering because of Simpson’s acquittal—a view also held by Bailey.
Bailey says he’s the only defense lawyer still proclaiming Simpson’s innocence. Dershowitz says that is part of his character.
“If F. Lee Bailey’s your lawyer, you’re his friend, you’re his client, and you’re innocent,” he says. “He’s the only lawyer who does that. He doesn’t play the game the rest of us play: ‘Oh, I don’t know whether he’s guilty or innocent, but I’m giving him the best possible defense.’ Bailey is totally convinced that O.J. was innocent.”
Bailey’s theory is that Nicole Brown Simpson was killed in a mistaken hit intended for another woman, a frequent houseguest of Simpson’s rumored to owe money to drug dealers.
Bailey feels a connection to Simpson because of what he sees as similar treatment. “I don’t think he got fairly treated, and I don’t think I got fairly treated,” he told Town & Country. “If that’s not a level of kinship, it’s certainly a level of identity. We have the O.J. curse in common, to a degree.”
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “No one is expected to oppose parole for ‘model prisoner’ OJ Simpson”
