Nicole Brown Anti-Abuse Charity Beset by Problems : Aid: Embarrassments include controversial donors, felony record of fired leader. Family cites growing pains.

It was intended to be a lasting memorial to Nicole Brown Simpson, a nonprofit organization committed to stamping out domestic violence of the sort she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband and accused killer, O.J. Simpson.

Unveiled last December at New York’s posh Rainbow Room, the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation quickly took in tens of thousands of dollars in private donations--to be spent, her grieving family said, on a nationwide campaign to raise awareness about spousal abuse and fund the shelters that serve its victims.

But in the months that have followed, it is the Browns themselves who have undergone a painful education.

Their philanthropic efforts, though generally lauded for focusing attention on domestic violence, have been blemished by a series of gaffes and misfires that have both embarrassed the family and undermined the foundation’s credibility, according to court documents, tax statements and interviews with leaders of the battered women’s movement.

The founding president of the Nicole Brown Simpson fund, records show, is a convicted felon and accused spousal batterer, who was once named in a domestic restraining order for posing a “clear and present danger” to his estranged wife and two children.

Jeff C. Noebel, a 40-year-old Dallas businessman, is currently awaiting sentencing in U.S. District Court for lying to federal authorities in a savings-and-loan investment scam, one of his many shaky business ventures that have left a trail of bankruptcies and lawsuits from Texas to California.

“I guess you’d call us novices,” said family patriarch Louis Brown, 71, who asked Noebel to step down in March after a tabloid reporter tipped the family to his checkered past. “I get bitter with myself for thinking how stupid we were.”

Judgment Questioned

The Browns also have accepted donations from a host of controversial sponsors, many of whom profit from scandal--prompting others in the fight against domestic violence to question the family’s judgment.

According to tax records reviewed by The Times, contributors to the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation have included: Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione ($10,000); Geraldo Rivera and his associated companies ($35,000); the National Enquirer’s parent corporation ($5,000); No Excuses, the jeans maker that has hitched itself to some of America’s most sensational liaisons ($50,000), and Dove Audio, publisher of Faye Resnick’s sexually explicit tell-all book about Nicole, which Louis Brown himself denounced as “trash” ($10,000).

When asked about the funding, Brown said he saw no problem taking money from anyone willing to aid the fight against spousal abuse, regardless of their motivation.

“I’m not in a position to damn them or give them forgiveness,” he said. “If it relieves their conscience, fine. That’s their problem, not mine.”

Far more important than the source of the money, Brown insisted, is how it is spent. Although $10,000 might not mean much to an X-rated magazine magnate, it could help keep open a shelter, or even educate a batterer to recognize his problem and, as Brown put it, “stop beating the old lady.”

But the leaders of several prominent domestic violence organizations, both on a national level and in Southern California, said they would never dream of taking funds from some of those sources, whom they accused of fueling the culture that demeans and exploits women in the first place.

“To accept money from these folks is really unconscionable,” said Carol Arthur, executive director of the Domestic Abuse Project, a respected Minnesota-based program that has been replicated around the country. “It goes against everything that our movement believes in.”

Even one of the Browns’ earliest contributors--Dove Audio--grew uncomfortable about its fellow sponsors and severed ties with the foundation. “Based on some of the people associated with it, we decided to go in a different direction,” said Michael Viner, president of the publishing house, which originally had pledged to donate profits of Resnick’s book to the family.

The Browns, some abuse experts suggest, might not yet possess a full understanding of the complex issues underlying domestic violence--just as the family initially denied that Nicole Brown Simpson was herself a battered woman. The prevailing philosophy, according to most mainstream organizations, is to view spousal abuse not just in terms of the offending individual, but as the outgrowth of a society that glorifies violence.

When it comes to fund-raising, “our mission is not just to collect money, but to actually change the social fabric,” said Rita Smith, coordinator of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which offered its assistance to the Browns several months ago but did not receive a reply.

Although Smith applauded the family for trying to channel its tragic notoriety toward a constructive goal, she added: “You have to ask yourself, ‘Is this going to compromise my values?’ In the long run, a one-time shot of money isn’t worth trading off the integrity of your work.”

So far, it is difficult to gauge what the work of the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation entails.

Denise Brown, the organization’s spokeswoman and chief executive officer, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Messages were left both on her home answering machine and with her personal attorney, Gloria Allred.

Her father, Louis Brown, who took over the duties of president in the wake of Noebel’s dismissal, concedes that the foundation slipped into a state of dormancy almost as soon as it was launched--”a standstill,” he said, “probably for the better part of the six months we’ve been in existence.”

None of the foundation’s directors--who include Brown’s wife, Juditha, and their two other daughters, Dominique and Tanya--receive compensation for their expenses or their time, which in Denise’s case runs as high as 60 hours a week, according to their 1994 tax statement.

Those records, the only financial documents made public by the foundation, show that $153,888 was raised last December, the group’s first month in operation. Of that, $5,525 was spent on legal fees, $314 on postage and $19 on supplies.

Brown refused to disclose any records for 1995, though he estimated that only $50,000 had been raised since the beginning of the year. He attributed the drop-off not so much to any controversies, or even to Noebel’s time at the helm, but to the confusion of relocating the foundation’s office last March--from the Browns’ crowded Monarch Bay home to a nearby shopping plaza, where they now pay $3,050 a month for rent and a secretary, according to Lou Brown.

“Growing pains,” explained Brown, a semi-retired real estate investor, who once ran a Hertz rental car franchise for O.J. Simpson.

Each time a donation of at least $5 is received, the foundation offers its thanks with a small angel pin, which has become the Browns’ favored symbol of support. Close to 10,000 of them have been handed out. But when it comes to dispensing funds, the family has been less prolific. Since incorporating on Nov. 30, 1994, the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation has yet to issue a grant.

It appears that will change on July 18 when the Browns are expected to award $10,000 to Human Options, a Laguna Beach shelter that has been advising the family on domestic abuse issues. The grant was originally announced last December, but a spokeswoman for the shelter said that Human Options had delayed the transaction for its own scheduling reasons.

“We’re proud of the role we’ve been able to play with them,” said Jeri Rimel, the chief Human Options fund-raiser, adding that she had no objection to the source of the Browns’ money. “They’ve brought an issue, which for much too long has been on the back pages of the news, to the front pages. And I’m sure that has saved lives.”

The seeds of the foundation were sown in the grief and anger of last summer’s brutal slaying of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman, allegedly at the hands of football great O.J. Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty to the murders.

Smooth Talker

Although the Browns were deluged with suggestions about how to best pay homage to Nicole and rebuild their shattered lives, their catalyst seems to have been Jeff Noebel, a dapper, smooth-talking financier who made his first million--in cash, he notes--before his 30th birthday.

Noebel had been introduced to both Nicole and Denise Brown several years ago by a mutual friend, Randall England, a struggling Beverly Hills actor who appeared on “General Hospital” in the late 1980s.

England said he has known Denise Brown for about 15 years, since their days working together at a Westside modeling agency. They dated for a while and he eventually became a close family friend, serving as a pallbearer at Nicole’s funeral.

England also is a longtime friend of Noebel’s, though he insists he knew nothing of his legal and marital problems. England is a stockholder in one of Noebel’s companies and both have worked on behalf of Project Unity, a South-Central Los Angeles community organization founded by the late Rev. Bennie Newton, who rescued a man from an angry mob during the 1992 riots.

Using England as a go-between, Noebel rekindled his acquaintance with Denise Brown shortly after the murders, presenting her with an outline of his vision for a charitable mission.

“I don’t think I’m the first one who had the idea, but I did make some suggestions about what it should do, where it should go and what it should be,” Noebel said in an interview. “They came back to me and said: ‘It sounds good. How do we do it?’ ”

Over the next several months, Noebel said, he spoke on the phone almost daily with Denise and Louis Brown. They exchanged faxes and documents via overnight mail. Noebel traveled to Southern California every week or two for meetings with them. Sometimes, he said, he stayed as a guest at their gated seaside home.

As president of the nascent organization, Noebel also said he drafted most of the founding documents. He coordinated the meetings, developed the internal management structure, handled the correspondence and even taped the foundation’s first recorded phone message.

“It was like birthing a baby,” he said. “I nurtured it from its concept to its reality. I thought it would be a lifelong commitment.”

At the time, however, Noebel’s life was complicated by a few other matters that seemed at odds with his charitable work.

While he was busy strategizing with the Browns--who he contends knew about his troubles--Noebel was under federal indictment in Texas for a scam that allegedly bilked 14 investors out of $875,000.

According to court records, Noebel and several cohorts were accused of duping the investors into buying dubious shares of a Florida savings and loan. As an enticement, they allegedly offered to repurchase the shares at any time, but never took any steps to ensure that cash would be available for refunds, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Wiedis.

“In our opinion,” Wiedis said, “they were prolific con men.”

Troubled Past

Rather than face trial, Noebel agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in February to one count of making a false statement to U.S. banking regulators. In exchange, prosecutors will request a reduction in what would have been a maximum two-year prison term when he is sentenced Aug. 11.

Even before his criminal conviction, records show, Noebel was enmeshed in a long history of legal and financial troubles. He has been scolded by a bankruptcy judge for using the court system to evade creditors. He has been sued by the city of Dallas and the Dallas Independent School District for not paying property taxes. He has been slapped with a lien by the Internal Revenue Service for skirting $85,000 in income taxes. And he has been dropped by at least three of his own attorneys for failing to pay legal fees.

Court documents also show that Noebel’s estranged wife has accused him of a pattern of stalking and abuse that came to head in June, 1994, just days after Nicole Brown Simpson was killed.

Testifying in their divorce proceedings, Leisa Marie Noebel, 37, said she came home from work to find Noebel in a rage, apparently looking for a desk they had purchased together. When she told him she had sold it, Noebel “became very angry and shoved me against the door.”

She said she slipped away but Noebel followed her into the kitchen, allegedly throwing her against a cabinet and ripping a telephone out of the wall. “Then he pushed me and was shouting at me and telling me that I shouldn’t sell his stuff and what a bitch I was and a liar,” she testified.

Twice that day, Noebel’s wife called police to the house, although she declined to press charges, according to Dallas Police Department records. But the next day, she did ask a judge to issue a restraining order, urging that Noebel be required “to submit to counseling or to complete a batterer’s treatment program.”

Noebel, who is the father of two boys, ages 5 and 7, dismisses his wife’s charges as a ploy in their custody battle. “Abuse is the allegation de jour ,” he said, not exactly sounding like an advocate for battered women.

He did say, however, that having been “on the negative end of unfounded allegations of domestic violence,” he understood what it felt like to be a victim of an abusive relationship, which is one of the reasons he gave for wanting to lead the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation.

Under his guidance, by all appearances, the organization got off to a rollicking start. A news conference was called at the swank Rainbow Room, high atop New York’s Rockefeller Center, which claims the highest champagne consumption of any restaurant in the world.

Speaking for the family was Denise Brown, 37, a near mirror-image of her slain sister, whose portrait was blown up on one wall. After reading a brief statement, which Noebel says he co-authored, she held up a giant-sized check for $50,000, courtesy of jeans-maker No Excuses.

No Excuses had snatched up Donna Rice as a spokesmodel after her rendezvous with then-presidential candidate Gary Hart, then anointed Marla Maples as its pitchwoman after her tryst with Donald Trump.

“I’m thinking, great,” recalled one Brown family friend, who asked not to be identified. “Donna Rice, Marla Maples--and Nicole?”

If eyebrows were raised by the Browns’ association with No Excuses, the family was not fazed. The following week, the entire clan appeared on Geraldo Rivera’s show, which they transformed into a fund-raiser. Rivera personally chipped in $10,000 of his own money. Bob Guccione then called in, pledging $10,000 in cash as well as $1 million worth of free advertising in his assorted magazines.

It was not the last time that the family’s message would end up being eclipsed by the messenger’s choice of companion. In Boston a few months later for some TV interviews on domestic violence, Denise Brown was spotted palling around with Anthony (Tony the Animal) Fiato, a former member of organized crime now living under federal witness protection.

After a front-page photo of the pair created a local stir, Brown called the Boston Herald from her hotel room. With Fiato at her side, she explained that he had befriended her with a little wise-guy humor earlier that year while they were waiting together in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. The interview landed her on the front page again, but it was for describing the ex-mobster as “a wonderful guy,” not for plugging her cause.

Then came Noebel, whose undoing was the work of one of the foundation’s own corporate sponsors, the National Enquirer, which sent a reporter to Dallas to sift through the mountain of legal documents detailing his many mishaps.

Alan Butterfield, who has been leading the tabloid’s coverage of the O.J. Simpson case, then met personally with members of the Brown family, with whom he has developed a close relationship over the last year.

“They were speechless,” Butterfield said in an interview. “They felt like they had been victimized again.”

The next day, before the Enquirer’s story even ran, Noebel was fired. Despite the Browns’ reaction, Noebel insists that he fully briefed the family about his troubles, especially the allegations of spousal abuse.

“If you’re going to head a foundation that is supposed to help eradicate domestic violence, that’s something you don’t really want them surprised with,” he said, adding that most of his conversations were with Denise Brown, whom he called a “trusted confidante.”

Although Louis Brown denies that Noebel came clean with the family, he did seem to be aware of at least one domestic incident that could have been an indicator that something was amiss. He acknowledged that his daughter told him that Noebel had confessed to an odd confrontation, that “his wife had stepped on his toes and he shoved her down the stairs.”

Noebel confirms mentioning the episode, though he implies that he was the victim, not his wife. Either way, “Denise passed it off for what it was,” her father said, suggesting that she viewed it as an accident. “He [Noebel] is smooth. What else can I say?”

Since Noebel’s departure, the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation has sputtered along, not even actively searching for a new president. Nonetheless, in the last month or so, the organization seems to have begun picking up a hint of its earlier momentum.

In May, the Browns’ youngest daughter, Tanya, traveled to Miami, where she did several interviews aimed at the city’s Latino community. As a result of her success, her father said, the foundation added a Spanish-language line to its prerecorded phone message.

A $50-a-seat fund-raiser, sponsored June 1 by the Rotary Club of Laguna Niguel, drew about 350 people to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. A private donor, who has not been identified, recently gave $5,000, the largest single contribution of the year. And on just one June day, $760 in checks arrived in the mail.

When pressed for more details about the foundation’s activities and finances, however, Louis Brown seemed perplexed and a little miffed.

“Believe it or not,” he said after a long pause, “we’ve had a few little things to take care of.”

Times staff writer Jeff Leeds and researchers Jacci Cenacveira and Lianne Hart contributed to this story.