LAS VEGAS (AP) – Former football legend O.J. Simpson became a free man again Sunday 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 12:08 a.m. PDT from Lovelock Correctional Center in northern Nevada, state prisons spokeswoman Brooke Keast told The Associated Press. 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,” Keast added.
FILE – In this July 20, 2017, file photo, former NFL football star O.J. Simpson reacts after learning he was granted parole at Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nev. Simpson was convicted in 2008 of enlisting some men he barely knew, including two who had guns, to retrieve from two sports collectibles sellers some items that Simpson said were stolen from him a decade earlier. A Nevada prison official said early Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, O.J. Simpson, the former football legend and Hollywood star, has been released from a Nevada prison in Lovelock after serving nine years for armed robbery. (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, Pool, File)
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-of-night release from the prison about 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Reno, Nevada, was conducted to avoid media attention.
“We needed to do this to ensure public safety and to avoid any possible incident,” Keast added, speaking by telephone. She spoke from Lovelock, where she said she witnessed Simpson signing documents to be released.
The 70-year-old Simpson gains his freedom after being granted parole at a hearing in July. Unlike the last time he went free, 22 years ago, he will face restrictions – up to five years of parole supervision – and he’s unlikely to escape public scrutiny as the man who morphed from charismatic football hero, movie star and TV personality into suspected killer and convicted armed robber.
Simpson was looking forward to reuniting with his family, eating a steak and some seafood and moving back to Florida, LaVergne said recently.
Simpson also plans to get an iPhone and get reacquainted with technology that was in its infancy when he was sent to prison in 2008, his attorney said.
The Florida Department of Corrections, however, said officials had not received a transfer request or required documents, and the attorney general said the state didn’t want him.
“The specter of his residing in comfort in Florida should not be an option,” Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Friday. “Our state should not become a country club for this convicted criminal.”
Close friend Tom Scotto, who lives in Naples, Florida, has offered to have Simpson live at his house. Scotto also didn’t immediately respond to messages about Simpson’s plans.
Simpson lost his home near Miami to foreclosure in 2012.
Two of Simpson’s children, Justin and Sydney, also live in Florida.
He could live at least temporarily in Las Vegas, where a friend let Simpson use his home for five weeks during his robbery trial.
His five years of parole supervision could be reduced with credits for good behavior.
It’s a new chapter for the one-time pop culture phenomenon whose fame was once again on display when the major TV networks carried his parole hearing live.
He told officials that leading a group of men into a 2007 armed confrontation was an error in judgment he would not repeat.
He told the parole board that he led a “conflict-free life,” an assertion that angered many who believe he got away with killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles in 1994.
Simpson was once an electrifying running back dubbed “Juice” who won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s best college football player for USC in 1968 and became one of the NFL’s all-time greats with the Buffalo Bills.
Handsome and charming, he also provided commentary on “Monday Night Football,” became the face of Hertz rental-car commercials and built a movie career with roles in the “Naked Gun” comedies and other films.
Simpson fell from grace when he was arrested in the slayings, after a famous “slow-speed” Ford Bronco chase on California freeways. His subsequent trial became a live-TV sensation that fascinated viewers with its testimony about a bloody glove that didn’t fit and unleashed furious debate over race, police and celebrity justice.
A jury swiftly acquitted him, but two years later, Simpson was found liable in civil court for the killings and ordered to pay $33.5 million to survivors, including his children and Goldman’s family.
He is still on the hook for the judgment, which now amounts to about $65 million, according to a Goldman family lawyer.
On Sept. 16, 2007, he led five men he barely knew to the Palace Station casino in Las Vegas in an effort to retrieve items that Simpson insisted were stolen after his acquittal in the 1994 slayings. Two of the men with Simpson in Las Vegas carried handguns, although Simpson still insists he never knew anyone was armed. He says he only wanted to retrieve personal items, mementoes and family photos.
He went to prison in 2008, receiving a stiff sentence that his lawyers said was unfair.
If the nation’s Simpson obsession waned for a while, it resurged last year with the Emmy-winning FX miniseries, “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” and the Oscar-winning documentary “O.J.: Made in America.”
FILE – In this Thursday, July 20, 2017, file photo, former NFL football star O.J. Simpson enters his parole hearing at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nev. A Nevada prison official said early Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, O.J. Simpson, the former football legend and Hollywood star, has been released from a Nevada prison in Lovelock after serving nine years for armed robbery. (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – In this July 20, 2017 file photo, former NFL football star O.J. Simpson reacts after learning he was granted parole during a hearing at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nev. Simpson was granted parole after more than eight years in prison for a Las Vegas hotel heist. A Nevada prison official said early Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, O.J. Simpson, the former football legend and Hollywood star, has been released from a Nevada prison in Lovelock after serving nine years for armed robbery. (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – In this May 14, 2013, file photo, O.J. Simpson appears at an evidentiary hearing in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas. A Nevada prison official said early Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, O.J. Simpson, the former football legend and Hollywood star, has been released from a Nevada prison in Lovelock after serving nine years for armed robbery. (Ethan Miller via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – In this Dec. 5, 2008, file photo, O.J. Simpson speaks during his sentencing hearing at the Clark County Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas. Sitting right to Simpson is his lawyer Yale Galanter. Simpson was sentenced Friday to at least 15 years in prison for a hotel armed robbery after a judge rejected his apology and said, “It was much more than stupidity.” A Nevada prison official said early Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, O.J. Simpson, the former football legend and Hollywood star, has been released from a Nevada prison in Lovelock after serving nine years for armed robbery. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, Pool, File)
FILE – In this July 20, 2017, file photo, former NFL football star O.J. Simpson enters for his parole hearing at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nev. A Nevada prison official said early Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, O.J. Simpson, the former football legend and Hollywood star, has been released from a Nevada prison in Lovelock after serving nine years for armed robbery. (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – In this May 14, 2013, pool file photo, O.J. Simpson sits during a break on the second day of an evidentiary hearing in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas. Simpson, the former football star, TV pitchman and now Nevada prison inmate, will have a lot going for him when he appears before state parole board members Thursday, July 20, 2017 seeking his release after more than eight years for an ill-fated bid to retrieve sports memorabilia. A Nevada prison official said early Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, O.J. Simpson, the former football legend and Hollywood star, has been released from a Nevada prison in Lovelock after serving nine years for armed robbery. (AP Photo/Ethan Miller, Pool, File)
FILE – This July 20, 2017 file photo shows former NFL football star O.J. Simpson at his parole hearing at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nev. Simpson was granted parole after more than eight years in prison for a Las Vegas hotel heist. A Nevada prison official said early Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, O.J. Simpson, the former football legend and Hollywood star, has been released from a Nevada prison in Lovelock after serving nine years for armed robbery. (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, Pool, File)
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