PHOTO BY JASON BEAN/THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL via AP
Former NFL football star O.J. Simpson reacts after learning he was granted parole at Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nev., on Thursday, July 20, 2017. 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.
By THOMAS GRILLO
Former NFL football star O.J. Simpson was granted parole Thursday by a Nevada parole board after more than eight years in prison for a Las Vegas hotel room heist.
Simpson, 70, looking trim, walked briskly into the hearing room dressed in jeans, a light blue prison-issue shirt and sneakers. He laughed as the parole board chairwoman mistakenly gave his age as 90.
The controversial former pitchman could get out as early as Oct. 1. By then, he will have served the minimum of his nine-to-33-year armed robbery sentence. He apologized for his role in the 2007 incident, and promised he would stay out of trouble if released.
F. Lee Bailey, a member of the so-called Dream Team that helped acquit Simpson for the 1994 murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, said he was not surprised by Simpson’s release.
“He had no criminal record, other than this, unless you count being acquitted, he’s been a model prisoner, never gotten in trouble, and he’s never given anybody any guff,” Bailey told WCSH-TV in Portland, Maine.
Bailey, a former Lynn resident who also represented the self-described Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo, said “O.J. managed to steer a clear path there and to try to do some good in the prison.”
Ogor Winnie Okoye, a criminal defense lawyer in Lynn, said she was excited about Simpson’s release.
“Let’s be honest about this, what did he go to jail for? Taking back what belonged to him?” she said. “The parole board did the right thing. The law was on their side. I don’t think they had any complaints about him and he always did the right thing while in custody. When you look at the original charges, really? The sentencing was really for what a lot of people consider his prior sins.”
During the hearing, Simpson testified he never pointed a gun at anyone nor made any threats during the crime that put him in prison. He insisted nearly all the memorabilia he saw in two dealers’ hotel room belonged to him.
“In no way, shape or form did I wish them any harm,” he said.
He has spent his time in prison mentoring fellow inmates, he said, often keeping others out of trouble, and is convinced he has become a better person behind bars.
“I’ve done my time,” he said. “I’ve done it as well and respectfully as I think anybody can.”
Material from Associated Press was used in this report. Thomas Grillo can be reached at [email protected].