Official Says Simpson Paid for Golf Carts

PACOIMA —  The mystery over whether or not O.J. Simpson received “special favors” while playing at Hansen Dam Golf Course has been solved, city parks officials said Wednesday.

The verdict: He’s innocent.

Last week, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon alleged that the municipal golf course had provided Simpson with an extra golf cart, free of charge, on two occasions so that his bodyguard could follow along to shoo away autograph hounds.

But an official with the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department said that records from the Hansen Dam golf cart shack show that Simpson in fact paid the $20 rental fees.

“There were absolutely no golf carts given to him. We’ve verified that,” said Dick Ginevan, the city’s golf and parks program manager. “As far as we’re concerned, that’s no longer an issue.”

The carts are owned by a private concessionaire, with a portion of each rental going to the city. The parks department investigation followed a volley of angry letters and telephone calls between city officials last week.

At the time, Alarcon said that Jim Andervich, an assistant general manager of the parks department, had mentioned the alleged impropriety during a casual conversation. The councilman faxed a letter to parks commissioners expressing his “outrage.”

Andervich said that Alarcon had misunderstood.

“In all honesty, both of us were talking and neither one of us were listening to each other,” Andervich said. “From there, it went haywire.”

Wednesday, the councilman expressed satisfaction with the parks department’s findings, saying: “I’m glad that the investigation shows that there was nothing improper there.”

But he added that he was still mad at Andervich for misleading him.

The dust-up was the latest in a string of controversies dogging Simpson and his golf game. During his criminal trial on double murder charges, Simpson’s defense team claimed he was chipping golf balls around the time of the killings. After his acquittal, some members of the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades lobbied to have his membership revoked.