Simpson free; early release from parole

O.J. Simpson is a free man. The 74-year-old former running back and actor, acquitted murder defendant and convicted armed robber, was granted good-behavior credits and discharged from parole effective Dec. 1, Nevada State Police spokeswoman Kim Yoko Smith said Tuesday.

“Mr. Simpson is a completely free man now,” said Malcolm LaVergne, Simpson’s lawyer.

Simpson, who grew up in public housing in San Francisco, attended Galileo High, then USC and won the Heisman Trophy as college football’s best player in 1968. He became a Pro Football Hall of Famer and the first running back to gain 2,000 yards in a season with the Buffalo Bills in 1973, later finishing his career with the 49ers. He acted in movies and served as a rent-a-car company pitchman and a football commentator.

In what became known as “The Trial of the Century,” he was acquitted in 1995 of the double slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. A civil court ruling later found him responsible for the killlings.

In a separate case more than a decade later, Simpson was convicted by a jury in Las Vegas and sentenced to prison for leading five men, including two with guns, in a 2007 confrontation with two sports-collectibles dealers in a cramped room at an off-strip Las Vegas casino hotel.

Simpson served nine years in a Nevada prison for armed robbery. He was released on parole in 2017; his original parole discharge date was Sept. 29, 2022.

⏩ Tina Tintor, the 23-year-old woman who died in a fiery crash that authorities blame on exRaiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs III driving drunk at speeds of 156 mph, burned to death, the county coroner in Las Vegas said.

The Raiders released Ruggs hours after the crash. He remains on house arrest with strict conditions after posting $150,000 bail.