Eight arrested in alleged Ecstasy ring

By Ken Thomas, Associated Press, 12/04/01

MIAMI -- Federal agents searched O.J. Simpson's home early Tuesday as part of an investigation into an Ecstasy drug ring and the theft of equipment used to steal satellite television signals.

Eight other people were arrested in Miami and two in Chicago as part of a two-year investigation called Operation X, FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said.

Simpson had not been arrested or indicted and Orihuela wouldn't discuss his connection to the investigation. Nine other homes in Miami were also being searched by the FBI along with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Miami-Dade Police Department.

Agents arrived at about 6 a.m. and the former football great was at home. In a shot from a television helicopter, Simpson could be seen walking in the backyard in a bathrobe. About two hours after agents arrived, Simpson left the home alone in his sports utility vehicle.

Simpson attorney Yale Galanter did not immediately return a call to his office seeking comment.

Orihuela said the ring imported Ecstasy from Holland and stole equipment used to counterfeit cards that activate satellite television receivers.

The incident was not Simpson's first brush with the law since he moved to the neighborhood 15 miles southwest of Miami last year.

He was acquitted in a Miami trial Oct. 24 of grabbing another driver's glasses and scratching the man's face in an alleged road-rage argument Simpson said was started by the other guy.

Simpson was cleared of criminal charges in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles, but a civil jury later ordered him to pay $33.5 million for their deaths.