O.J. Simpson heads to unknown destination

LAS VEGAS — Former football great O.J. Simpson became a free man Sunday after serving nine years for a botched hotel room heist that brought prison time he avoided after his 1995 acquittal in the killings of his ex-wife and her friend.

Simpson, 70, was released just after midnight from Lovelock Correctional Center in northern Nevada, said state prisons spokesperson Brooke Keast.

She said she didn’t know immediately where Simpson was headed, adding that an unidentified driver met him and took him to an undisclosed location.

“I don’t have any information on where he’s going,” said Keast, who watched Simpson in blue jeans, denim jacket and ball cap signing documents before his release.

Her department released a brief video on social media of Simpson being told to “come on out” by a prison staffer. He responded, “OK,” and walked through an open door and into the predawn darkness.

Tom Scotto, a Simpson friend who lives in Naples, Fla., said by text message an hour later that he was with Simpson, but did not answer texts asking where they were going or whether members of Simpson’s family were with them.

Simpson has said he wanted to move back to Florida, where he lived before his armed robbery conviction in Las Vegas in a September 2007 confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers.