A court officer says a Nevada judge, not a private arbitrator, should hear O.J. Simpson's defamation lawsuit against the Las Vegas Strip hotel.
The convicted felon and former football star blames the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas for published accounts that he was drunk and disruptive before he was banned from the property in November 2017.
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas representatives didn't immediately say whether they'll appeal the Monday ruling.
The hotel owner argues Simpson can't be defamed because his reputation was already tarnished by his criminal and civil trials in the 1994 deaths of his ex-wife and her friend in Los Angeles and his conviction and imprisonment in Nevada in his 2007 armed robbery case.
