Famed criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, who represented former football player, broadcaster and actor O.J. Simpson in his 1995 murder trial, filed for bankruptcy Friday, listing a $5.2 million debt to the IRS.
Bailey, 83, has fallen on hard times in recent years. He said in a phone interview Monday that his allegedly unpaid taxes stem in part from the fallout of a 1994 case in which he represented Claude Duboc, who pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and money laundering. Duboc agreed to forfeit the extensive proceeds of his drug trade to the federal government, with Bailey taking control of some of his assets, including shares of stock in a Canadian pharmaceutical company, Biochem Pharma Inc., and two French estates.
