OJ Simpson to go free early
33 years for armed robbery ...but star will be out after 9
‘Fit and healthy’
OJ SIMPSON laughed and joked through a parole hearing yesterday where he was told he will be freed from his 33-year jail term for armed robbery after just nine years.
The grey-haired ex-sports star and actor, whose 1995 acquittal for the double murder of his estranged wife and her friend appalled America, will be out as early as October.
He had been given a nine to 33-year prison sentence for being the ringleader of a 2007 violent robbery of two sports memorabilia collectors, making him eligible for parole for the first time on October 1.
However, the decision by a Nevada board – which was widely expected given his model behaviour in prison – immediately sparked yet another furious row over his guilt in the deaths of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Speaking by video link-up from his prison in Lovelock, Nevada, to the parole hearing in Carson City, a smiling Simpson insisted: ‘I’ve done my time’ to the four-person board.
Simpson, 70, insisted he was sorry for the crime that landed him in prison – a Las Vegas hotel room heist in which he was convicted of the kidnap and armed robbery of a sports memorabilia dealer.
Two of his accomplices were armed with guns, hitting and threatening to shoot their victims. He has always claimed the items of memorabilia belonged to him from his career.
However, his relaxed demeanour and body language, as well as his selfjustifying testimony to the board, suggested he was anything but remorseful.
Despite his apologies, Simpson played down his guilt, insisting he had only been trying to recover his own sports memorabilia. He insisted he had never intended to commit a crime, let alone hurt anyone.
Looking far more fit and healthy than he has in previous court appearances, he said: ‘I am sorry things turned out the way they did.’
He added: ‘I’ve done my time. I just want to get back to my family and friends – believe it or not I do have real friends.’
When a parole board member mistakenly referred to him as being aged 90, Simpson quipped: ‘I feel like it though.’
The former American football star had already been granted parole in 2013 on a kidnapping charge. It was determined he should serve at least four more years for his other crimes.
Critics of yesterday’s decision to release him mocked his claim that he had led a ‘conflict-free life’, noting that – even leaving aside the shocking verdict in his murder trial – he had pleaded guilty to battering Nicole Simpson Brown during their troubled seven-year marriage. Legal experts also accused the parole board of failing to consider the threat Simpson posed to women given his history of domestic violence.
‘I am no danger, never pulled a gun on anybody,’ he told the board. ‘I never have in my life. Never been accused of it in my life.’
Simpson portrayed himself as the perfect prisoner, saying he had started a Baptist church service in prison and had gone on a course entitled ‘Alternative to Violence’ which ‘teaches you how to deal with conflict through conversation’.
He insisted he had been asked many times to mediate in conflicts between fellow prisoners, adding: ‘I’ve always thought I’ve been pretty good with people.’
His oldest child, Arnelle, his daughter by his first marriage to Marguerite Whitley, told the hearing: ’As a family, we recognise that he is not the perfect man but he’s clearly a man and a father that has done his best to behave the way that speaks to his overall nature and character.’