Mother’s Worry: Her Daughter Is Living With O.J.

A lot of mothers worry about their daughters and have reservations about the men their daughters date, but Cathy Bellmore, 46, a divorced, self-employed telemarketer from Minneapolis, is losing sleep more than most.

Hers is living with O.J. Simpson.

“I am deeply concerned about my daughter’s welfare,” Bellmore said in a Los Angeles attorney’s office Thursday, well aware that Saturday will be the fifth anniversary of the notorious murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

“No one knows her better than I do, and she is not behaving like herself. I have reason to believe that Christie has tried to get out of this relationship. In fact, she was planning to leave and come home to Minnesota with me last February, but at the last minute she chose to stay and move in with Mr. Simpson instead.

“My daughter has isolated herself from everyone in her life she ever trusted. I fear for both her personal and emotional safety.

“I am now receiving bills for her car payments and other debts, which have gone months unpaid. This is totally unlike the Christie I know.

“I believe that O.J. Simpson is taking advantage of the trust of a young woman who is half his age, keeping her from her loved ones and not taking care of her, or respecting her, as a ‘boyfriend’ should.”

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Picture this:

A couple of years ago, your daughter tells you that she went sightseeing at the $4-million Rockingham estate of O.J. Simpson--the one a bank foreclosed on in July 1997 and has since been demolished--when who should emerge but the homeowner himself to say hello and to ask for her telephone number.

At least this is the story Christie Prody told her mother, according to Bellmore.

Had they followed the trial?

“Right,” Bellmore says.

And?

“She thought he was guilty.”

And now?

“Now, she’s totally convinced he’s innocent.”

Prody, 24, whose parents were divorced when she was a child, is a cocktail waitress who goes to beauty school and, from certain angles, resembles Nicole.

She now cohabits, her mother says, a five-bathroom house in the Palisades that rents for $6,200 a month--although Simpson is still $33.5 million in debt from having lost his 1997 civil trial.

O.J. lives off a pension fund that pays him a $25,000 monthly stipend that is untouchable to those he owes. He is reportedly planning a move to Florida.

Whether Prody would go along is not known. Simpson recently told a reporter: “I don’t want any more commitments in my life.”

The biggest commitment Simpson has is to his two children, Sydney, 13, and Justin, 10. His former in-laws, Lou and Judy Brown, were the kids’ guardians during Simpson’s incarceration and would prefer to regain full custody.

That is why Bellmore consulted an attorney, Gloria Allred, who placed a call Thursday to a child abuse hotline, expressing a need “to assure the safety of Mr. Simpson’s children.”

The reason? The mother of O.J.’s current girlfriend is openly accusing him of using drugs.

“Mr. Simpson has admitted to me that he has used cocaine during the time they have been together,” Bellmore claims.

A friend of Simpson, whom she declined to identify, shared an apartment in California for a time with her daughter, Bellmore says. She alleges that this person told her about the drug use and urged her to intervene before it was too late.

Bellmore says it made her think of actor Carroll O’Connor, who lost a son due to drug use and has urged parents to “get involved.”

She flew here in February and met Christie and O.J. at a restaurant. But she was unable to persuade her daughter to break off the relationship.

“Christie was a responsible and mature young lady. Since she has been involved with O.J. Simpson, she has become withdrawn, unmotivated and overly emotional. She has become isolated from her closest friends and her family. Christie has also lost weight and appears unhealthy.”

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Bellmore claims that Simpson admitted using drugs, but pledged not to do so in the future. She calls Christie “starry-eyed” and wishes O.J. would date somebody his own age.

Her daughter doesn’t speak to her now. “She’s upset with me because I’m speaking out.”

Why is she speaking out?

“Because I’m worried about my daughter. Wouldn’t you be?”

They haven’t spoken since Mother’s Day.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com