O. J. Simpson is to be questioned by Las Vegas detectives today after being accused of carrying out an armed robbery with five other men.

The former sports star told the Associated Press last night that he had been involved in a “sting operation” to collect sports memorabilia that belonged to him, and denied that guns had been involved.

The allegations are all the more extraordinary for their timing: they coincide with the publication date of If I Did It, Simpson’s “confession” to the 1994 fatal stabbing of his wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, a crime for which Simpson was acquitted in a criminal court but found responsible for in a civil one.

He has yet to pay the $33.5 million (£17 million) damages he was ordered to give to the two victims’ families.

Simpson, 60, had hoped to make millions from If I Did It, but the rights to it were seized this year by the Goldman family in a bankruptcy court, and the version on sale in US bookshops today has been repackaged with 14,000 words of commentary and the sub-title, Confessions of the Killer. The Goldmans have said that they hope Simpson is enraged by his inability to cash in on the memoir.

As the book hit No 1 on the Amazon.com bestseller list yesterday, reports emerged that the well-known sports memorabilia dealer Alfred Beardsley had been approached with an offer to buy items once owned by Simpson.

These allegedly included the suit Simpson wore on the day of his murder acquittal in 1995, as well as never-released leather-bound editions of I Want To Tell You, a book he wrote while in jail awaiting trial on the double-murder charges. It is thought that some of the money raised from the sale would have been passed on to the Goldman family as part of their efforts to seize Simpson’s assets.

According to reports, Mr Beardsley arranged for the buyers to view the items at his room in the Palace Station Hotel & Casino, where rooms are advertised from $39.99 per night. Simpson allegedly turned up with five other men and took the memorabilia. It was reported by TMZ.com that Mr Beardsley was “roughed up” during the alleged robbery — a claim that Simpson has denied.

In his interview yesterday with the Associated Press, Simpson said he had been contacted by Tom Riccio, an auction house owner, and told that some memorabilia collectors “have a lot of your stuff and they don’t want anyone to know they are selling it”.

Simpson said that Mr Riccio had set up a meeting to view the items. “We walked into the room,” he said. “I’m the last one to go in, and when they see me, it’s all, ‘Oh God’. Everybody knows this is stolen stuff. Not only wasn’t there a break-in, but Riccio came to the lobby and escorted us up to the room. In any event, it’s stolen stuff that’s mine. Nobody was roughed up.”

He added that several of his friends helped him take back the items, but he did not know where they were being kept.

Captain James Dillon of the Las Vegas Police Department said: “The victim states that one of the suspects involved in the robbery was O. J. Simpson.” He added that a manhunt was still under way for “additional suspects” and he confirmed that the victim had claimed that “there were weapons involved”, an accusation that has not been officially unconfirmed.

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