After nine years, Simpson walks free
The notorious football legend was released at midnight to avoid media furore, said official
Former football legend O.J. Simpson became a free man yesterday after serving nine years for a botched hotel room heist in Las Vegas that brought the conviction and prison time he avoided in the killings of his ex-wife and her friend after his 1995 acquittal in the “trial of the century” in Los Angeles.
Simpson was released at 12.08am PDT from Lovelock Correctional Center in northern Nevada, state prisons spokeswoman Brooke Keast told AP.
She said she did not know the driver who met Simpson upon his release and didn’t know where Simpson was immediately headed in his first hours of freedom.
“I don’t have any information on where he’s going,” said Keast, who watched as Simpson signed documents and was let go.
Her department released video on social media of Simpson being told to “come on out” by a prison staffer, exiting through an open door. He could be seen responding “OK” as he left, wearing a ball cap, denim jacket, jeans and white tennis shoes.
Tom Scotto, a close Simpson friend who lives in Naples, Florida, said by text message that he was with Simpson following his release.
Parole hearing
Scotto didn’t respond to questions about where they were going or whether Simpson’s sister, Shirley Baker of Sacramento, California, or his daughter, Arnelle Simpson, were with him.
The three had attended Simpson’s parole hearing in July at the same prison where Simpson spent his sentence and was released just minutes into the first day a parole board set for his possible release.
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. Good looks, fame and fortune: O.J. Simpson appeared to have it made after rewriting the record books as an American football star.
But it all came crashing down in 1994 when Simpson, who had parlayed his sports fame into a career as an actor and advertising pitchman, was charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
Simpson was famously acquitted of those charges in 1995, but was sent to prison years later for a bungled armed robbery.
After serving nearly nine years behind bars, a parole board in the western state of Nevada approved his release in July — and 70-year-old Simpson walked free yesterday.
Born Orenthal James Simpson on July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, he was left in his mother’s care at age five when his father left, growing up poor and suffering from rickets, a calcium and vitamin deficiency that warped his legs.
Unable to afford an operation, his mother created braces and his legs grew stronger — eventually he was able to dash 91 metres in 9.9 seconds. Simpson was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.
But Florida prison officials said documents weren’t filed, and the state attorney general says she doesn’t want Simpson to live in the state.
Neither Simpson’s attorney, Malcolm LaVergne, in Las Vegas nor state Parole and Probation Capt Shawn Arruti, who has been handling Simpson’s case, immediately responded to messages.
Keast said the dead-ofnight release from the prison about 145 kilometres east of Reno, Nevada, was conducted to avoid media attention.