US waits to see what’s next for Simpson
When OJ Simpson, the former American football star and double murder suspect, was freed on parole he was told by prison staff: “Don’t come back,” to which he replied: “I don’t intend to.”
Dressed in prison-issued denim and wearing a baseball cap, he slipped out of the Lovelock Correctional Centre in Nevada at eight minutes past midnight local time after serving nine years in prison for an armed confrontation.
He was met by a driver. Tom Scotto, a close friend of Simpson who lives in Naples, Florida, later told AP by text message that he was with Simpson, but gave no further detail on his plans.
Prison officials said the early-hours departure was all part of a plan to avoid unwanted publicity. The US is gripped by feverish speculation about what comes next for a man whose charisma once catapulted him from the Buffalo Bills into Hollywood, before the killing of his ex-wife and her friend put him at the centre of a sensational murder trial.
Simpson, 70, has said he wants to move back to Florida, where he lived before his armed robbery conviction. His lawyer said he planned to get up to speed with new technology — such as buying an iPhone — and getting reacquainted with his family. “He wants to eat seafood, he wants to eat steak,” Malcolm LaVergne told the ABC. “He wants to enjoy the very simple pleasures that he hasn’t enjoyed in nine years.”
Scotto said he had invited Simpson to stay at his home in Florida as he
adjusted to life on the outside. However, officials in Florida said they had not received the paperwork needed under the terms of Simpson’s parole. The state’s attorney-general is opposed to his return, saying Floridians were aware of his “wanton disregard for the lives of others”.
“Our state should not become a country club for this convicted criminal,” said Pam Bondi, in a letter to the state’s corrections system.
Simpson was acquitted of the 1994 killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles. He was later found liable for their deaths in a civil case in 1997. In 2007, he was arrested again after leading five men to a Las Vegas casino to retrieve memorabilia he said had been stolen from him. Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison.