Simpson faces parole board with freedom on the line

LOVELOCK, NEV. O.J. Simpson once thrilled crowds as he ran for touchdowns with the Buffalo Bills and hurdled airport seats in car rental ads to achieve Hollywood celebrity before he was acquitted of murder in the 1995 “trial of the century” in Los Angeles.

Now an aging Simpson will appear as inmate No. 1027820 in a starkly plain hearing room in a remote Nevada prison Thursday to plead for his freedom.

He has spent more than eight years behind bars for armed robbery and assault with a weapon after trying to take back sports memorabilia in a budget hotel room in Las Vegas.

Simpson, 70, will ask four parole board members who sided with him once before to release him in October, a likely possibility with his clean prison record.

It will be a stunning scene for a charismatic star once known as The Juice, who won the Heisman Trophy as the best U.S. college football player in 1968 and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

He appeared to have it all. He went on to star in Hertz commercials and movies such as the Naked Gun comedies and do sideline reporting for Monday Night Football before his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman were slain in 1994.

Simpson is expected to reiterate that he has kept a promise to stay out of trouble, is a coach in the prison gym where he works and counsels other inmates.

The same commissioners granted him parole on some of his 12 charges in 2013, leaving him with four years to serve before reaching his minimum term.

Simpson is expected to explain to the parole board what he would do and where he would live if he is granted parole after reaching the nine-year minimum of his 33-year sentence.