SLOPPY JuICE
O.J. in drunken scene at Vegas bar – parole in peril
O.J. SIMPSON was tossed out of a Las Vegas hotel bar after causing a drunken ruckus — and could get tossed back into prison as a result, according to reports Thursday.
The Juice was sloshed when he started breaking glasses at the Cosmopolitan Hotel’s Clique Bar & Lounge about midnight, staffers told TMZ.com.
Security guards escorted the 70-year-old Simpson (photo inset) out of the hotel. The disgraced gridiron great was reportedly pleasant to the guards.
But he might be facing much bigger problems.
The encounter took place five weeks after Simpson walked out of a Nevada lockup following a nine-year stint for the 2007 robbery of two memorabilia dealers at a Sin City casino.
Under the terms of his parole, Simpson can drink alcohol but not in excess, and is subject to both drug and alcohol testing from his parole officer.
His lawyer Malcolm LaVergne told the Daily News that Simpson was neither drunk nor belligerent.
Simpson was escorted out of the hotel for unknown reasons after eating chicken wings at Clique with a friend, LaVergne said
“Like most things I deal with related to Simpson, 99 % of this is bull---t,” LaVergne said.
“The 1% of it that’s true is he was removed from the property.”
Capt. Shawn Arruti, of the Nevada Division of Parole and Probation, said he was unable to comment directly on Simpson’s status due to privacy constraints.
Under the department’s general policy, a parole officer can impose a series of “graduated sanctions” if an investigation substantiates a report of a violation.
The sanctions can include counseling, electronic monitoring, a curfew, all the way to a probable cause arrest.
Audio that TMZ.com claims to be from Las Vegas police dispatchers includes a reference to Simpson by his first name, Orenthal.
“He’s actually sitting inside the bar,” a dispatcher says. “He was asking about the pizza shop.” Simpson’s lawyer said he believes the audio in fact involves discussions among the hotel’s security. TMZ reported that Simpson has been permanently banned from the Cosmopolitan. Hotel reps did not return a request for comment. Simpson has been spotted enjoying himself along the Vegas strip in the weeks since his release from prison. The NFL Hall of Famer was sentenced to 33 years behind bars for leading five men — two of them armed — into a room at the Palace Station casino to recover items he insisted were stolen following his acquittal in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman. Simpson remains subject to state supervision through September 2022.