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Sometime within the past year or so, the phone rang at Victor Moreno's office in Las Vegas. Moreno, president of American Memorabilia, heard the man on the other end of the line describe some items of O.J. Simpson's that he was hoping to sell.

"I remember him telling me about a suit," Moreno said Monday, "but even that's not gonna go for much. I told him, 'Bruce, O.J.'s stuff is not gonna sell. It's a dead deal. It's not moving. Nobody likes him.'"

Thus discouraged, Bruce Fromong went on to seek other avenues to move the Simpson items he said he had, Moreno says. The auction-house executive forgot about the entire conversation until this past weekend -- when Fromong surfaced as one of the two collectible dealers on hand as Simpson and a band of cocktail-party cohorts, some with guns, allegedly stormed a Vegas hotel room in an attempt to recover memorabilia items that Simpson claims were stolen from him years ago.

One of the items Simpson thought he might get back? The suit he wore in court on the day in 1995 that he was acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. It is the same suit that Bruce Fromong had already tried, unsuccessfully, to sell through any number of channels, including listing it on eBay.

The episode at the Palace Station hotel in Vegas has led to Simpson and two other men being charged, left others actively sought by law enforcement authorities, and brought before the public eye the loosely confederated world of sports and celebrity memorabilia collectors and hustlers.

It is a place populated by -- how to put it tactfully? -- characters.

"Tom Riccio -- he's a character," says Moreno, referring to auctioneer Thomas Riccio, identified in police accounts as the man who first alerted Simpson that someone was attempting to sell some O.J. memorabilia that Riccio considered to be of questionable origin.

Riccio is the same man who sold Anna Nicole Smith's diaries for $512,500 on eBay about six weeks after her death earlier this year. He also was ready to peddle video of Smith's 1994 breast-enhancement surgery, provided to him by the doctor who performed the procedure, before being blocked by preliminary injunction last month. He is the man who booked Simpson two years ago to sign memorabilia at the NecroComicon show in Los Angeles, a move that took a weird turn when the show's other biggest names turned out to be mostly the stars of horror and slasher films.

"He's something," Moreno says of Riccio. "I think his whole deal was, he was trying to help O.J. get his stuff back. But I know Riccio quite well. He's not gonna do nothin' for nobody unless he gets something out of it. Maybe he was talking to O.J. about selling it for him, I don't know."

Whatever the motive, a profit for Simpson almost certainly won't be among the outcomes. In addition to facing six charges, including two for assault with a deadly weapon, Simpson also stands a fair chance of never controlling the items he says he went to the hotel room to recover.

David J. Cook, an attorney for Fred Goldman, told the Los Angeles Times he will seek a court order this week to prevent the release of the items until it's made clear who actually has ownership rights -- and to stake a claim for the Goldman estate as part of Simpson's wrongful-death conviction in the case. Among the other murky details of the current Simpson case is the notion that even the police aren't yet certain what belongs to whom, and among the possible owners are collectors Alfred Beardsley and Fromong, the two men allegedly in the room when Simpson and several other men entered.

"Either Mr. Beardsley is going to walk out with the stuff or it's going to be ours," Cook told the Times. "This property will never touch Mr. Simpson's hands ever again."

That's not the same as saying that Simpson-related items won't sell. A cursory glance at sports memorabilia sites reveals a plethora of O.J.-signed stuff, and not all of it comes cheap. An autographed throwback Buffalo Bills jersey is offered at $294 at one site, while another lists a signed Bills helmet from the Simpson era at $540 (Simpson's inscription: "Miami has the Oranges, But Buffalo got the Juice").

Despite waving off Fromong on the Simpson articles last year, Moreno says he took consignment from Fromong sometime in the past on a football used by Simpson in a game -- which, from Moreno's perspective, is the only kind of O.J. gear that might still hold value.

"It needs to be mostly game-used stuff, jerseys or balls or whatever," Moreno says. "Outside of the Heisman Trophy -- and those will always go for $150,000, $200,000, because people really do want to collect them -- about the only thing that's worth it from O.J. is probably his rings.

"The other stuff? It just won't go. It's like I told Bruce: I kind of know this business, this auction business. The O.J. stuff is not moving. And that's not gonna change."

Mark Kreidler's book "Four Days to Glory: Wrestling With the Soul of the American Heartland", has been optioned for film/TV development by ESPN Original Entertainment. His book "Kids of Summer," about the curious ability of one town to consistently produce Little League champions, will be released in July 2008. A regular contributor to ESPN.com, he can be reached at mark@markkreidler.com.