O. J.’s next move
Troubled history with Sunshine State Family & pals open their doors to him
“When the prison doors are open, the real dragon will fly out,” Ho Chi Minh once said.
After serving nine years behind bars for a 2007 armed robbery at a Las Vegas casino hotel, the prison doors are finally opening for Orenthal James “O.J.” Simpson.
On Thursday, a Nevada corrections board unanimously granted O.J. parole. He is expected to walk free as early as Oct. 1. And just like it did after his 1995 “Trial of the Century” acquittal for the horrific murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the world is once again asking: What will life be like for a man so many believe got away with murder?
The answer, once again, seems to be in Florida.
During his parole hearing, the former football great indicated he wished to return to the state that is home to his two children with Nicole. He first moved there in 1999, after losing a $33 million civil suit filed by Goldman’s parents. State law guarantees that the Goldmans cannot confiscate properties he owns there, nor can they get to any of the $25,000 a month he gets as part of his NFL pension. The onetime B-movie actor also reportedly has a small pension from the Screen Actors Guild.
O.J. will first have to ask Florida for permission to live there, but under the rules of the Interstate Commission of Adult Offender Supervision, he is all but guaranteed entry.
Once he arrives, on one level O.J.’s life won’t be that much different from any other retiree in the Sunshine State — or even that much different than before. He’ll bask in the sun, play golf daily on myriad public courses and hang out with his friends (yes, O.J. still has plenty of them, probably more than most).
“Tell them we’ll be playing golf again soon,” Simpson reportedly told his pal Tom Scotto, just days before his parole hearing.
Where exactly he will be living is still unclear. Scotto has suggested O.J. may temporarily live with him in Miami before buying a house of his own. Jeffery Felix, a retired prison guard who worked at Lovelock Correctional Center and befriended O.J., has said O.J. mentioned living in St. Petersburg with his youngest daughter, Sydney, 31, who works in real estate. O.J.’s youngest son, Justin, 28, also lives and works in that city.
O.J. won’t be moving back to the sprawling, four-bedroom, fourbath ranch-style home he once owned in Kendall, a Miami suburb. The bank foreclosed on that property, and it was recently put up for sale for $1.3 million.
Whether he winds up in St. Pete on the Gulf Coast or back in his old stomping grounds on the Atlantic side of South Florida, all indications are that the Juice wants to go right back to the life he was living before his 2008 arrest.
Depending on which dragon comes out, that could be a real problem.
Unlike the first time he moved to Florida, this time O.J. will be coming in as a convicted felon. For the next five years, he’ll have to keep his nose clean and report to a parole officer, submitting himself to random searches, as well as drug and alcohol testing. He’ll also have to surrender his passport.
That may immediately come into conflict with his preconceived notions of freedom. Prior to his first parole hearing in 2013, O.J. had some pretty grandiose ideas of what he would do, telling friends he wanted to be helicoptered out of Lovelock prison, then eventually hide out in the Bahamas in order to avoid the media.
“It’s gonna be extremely hard for him,” says one of O.J.’s Miami acquaintances, Pedro Rosado, a chef and partner at the Roasters ’N Toasters Deli in Pinecrest,
where O.J. would come at least twice a week for breakfast after dropping his kids off at school. “No drinking, no messing around, no partying, no drugs, no this, no that. It’s extremely hard for anybody that comes out on parole.”
Rosado first met O.J. at his restaurant shortly after the former football great moved to Florida. He described O.J. as a “very nice person, very authentic. He was good with my kids and wonderful with my wait staff. I couldn’t say anything bad about him.” He would always show up to charities and fund-raisers when asked, always signed autographs, and often showered fans with autograph photos and mini-helmets.
He recalled that O.J. took care of himself. While he always ordered a comfort side of grits with his breakfast eggs and bacon, he would turn to a healthy tuna or turkey dish for lunch.
“He wasn’t a deep-fried kind of guy,” Rosado noted.
Then there’s the other O.J. — the one who took risks, acted like a thug, had several run-ins with Florida lawmen. The one who could wind up back in prison if the pattern persists.
Less than year after he first moved to Florida, O.J. ran a red light, cutting off a driver whom he later confronted, ripping off his glasses and scratching him on the face. He was charged with felony auto burglary and misdemeanor battery, but once again, he was acquitted.
A year later, federal and local agents raided his home in Kendall as part of an investigation into an ecstasy-smuggling ring. He was never charged in connection with the drug ring, but the feds did confiscate “bootloader” devices that the Heisman Trophy winner was using to pirate cable TV.
Six months after that, he was ticketed for speeding his boat through a manatee zone.
But the real warning signal that O.J. was heading off the rails came on July 29, 2007.
In an incident exclusively reported by The Post, that evening an enraged, jealous O.J. showed up at the home of his handyman, Janos Gonzalez, accusing him of sleeping with his longtime girlfriend, Christie Prody. Gonzalez’s wife at the time, Marlene, told The Post that O.J. held his hand behind his back as if he had a gun.
“Come over here. I’m going to f- -king kill you,” the ex-NFL star bellowed.
He was “very, very violent,” Marlene Gonzalez recalled.
No charges came of the incident,
It's gonna be extremely hard for him. No drinking, no messing around, no partying, no drugs, no this, no that. -Pedro Rosado a Miami friend
but The Post confirmed that Janos Gonzales and Prody indeed had a relationship. They were arrested together in Gonzalez’s truck a year earlier. He was charged with cocaine possession; she was charged with marijuana and paraphernalia possession.
Which brings up another challenge for O.J.
During his parole hearing, Simpson admitted that he had neglected to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous program, saying, “I don’t think anybody’s ever accused me of having an alcohol problem.”
Interestingly, three years ago, he told his friend and promoter, Neil Pardo, that one of the first things he wanted to do when he got out of prison was drink a glass of Jack Daniel’s.
Oddly, nobody at the parole hearing mentioned cocaine.
By all accounts, O.J. was heavily into the drug years before going to prison. In 1999, Prody’s mother, Cathy Bellmore, said in a TV interview that O.J. and her daughter were users.
Documents from the 2001 drug raid at Simpson’s house include witness reports of Simpson doing cocaine at parties, as well as accounts of Simpson and Prody showing up at one dealer’s house “at all hours looking to buy co- caine.”
The very first scene of the recent, critically acclaimed FX series “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson,” shows Simpson, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., snorting cocaine.
Prody, an admitted addict who was with Simpson on and off for 13 years before he went to prison, may also prove an irresistible temptation for him. Neither she nor her mom could be reached for interviews, but in an interview with Radar Online last year, she spoke of going on “marathon cocaine binges” with O.J., saying that during those benders, he admitted to her that he had murdered Nicole and Goldman by telling her “details only the killer would know.”
Prody also revealed that Simpson repeatedly beat her and expressed concern about the possibility of O.J. winning parole. Yet she would always return to him.
“My worst fear is that I will end up like Nicole — killed by O.J. because he can’t let go,” she said.