Former star athlete O.J. Simpson, who has become a notorious
felon in the meantime, will spend his 60s behind bars, after being sentenced
Friday by a Las Vegas
judge to 33 years in prison.
It was the bad decision of a lifetime for O. J. Simpson to
round up some buddies and storm into a Palace Station Hotel & Casino room
in Las Vegas on
Sept. 13, 2007, in order to, he maintains to this day, retrieve personal
belongings including sports trophies and family heirlooms, from sports
memorabilia collectors Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong.
Simpson was shortly arrested. One year later, on October 13,
2008, he was convicted of a dozen criminal charges, including kidnapping, armed
robbery and assault. Four of the men in his posse, Michael McClinton, Charles
Cashmore, Walter Alexander and Charles Ehrlich, took plea deals and testified
against the former star athlete. One of these men testified that Simpson asked
him to bring a gun to the confrontation.
The jury, who listened to two weeks of testimonies, said
after delivering the verdict that testimonies from Simpson’s former
co-defendants did not inspire them with much confidence. Instead, what helped
them make up their minds on Simpson’s guilt were audio recordings secretly made
in the hotel room by Thomas Riccio, the Los
Angeles collectibles dealer who arranged the meeting
between the former athlete and actor and the two collectors.
The fifth man in Simpson’s heist-gone wrong group, Clarence
Stewart, was convicted alongside the 61-year-old. Friday, he was sentenced to
at least 71/2 years behind bars, with a maximum sentence of 27 years.
O. J. Simpson was sentenced to as much as 33 years behind
bars. He is eligible for parole in nine years.
Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass listened to
his plea for leniency unconvinced. Simpson reiterated, “In no way did I mean to
hurt anybody, to steal anything.”
Judge Glass said her sentence had nothing to do with the
former pro’s 1995 acquittal on double murder charges but that his ill-devised
recuperation plan could have ended with someone being hurt. Glass refused to
let him go free on bail while he appeals.
Simpson’s attorneys had asked for no more than six years in
a Nevada
state prison. State parole authorities had recommended that both Simpson and
Stewart serve at least 18 years.
O. J. Simpson’s status brusquely changed in the mid 1990s,
from gridiron icon to persona non grata, after the murders of his former wife,
Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, in 1994. A year later, he
was acquitted of their slayings but many considered him to have slipped through
the fingers of justice.
In 1997, a civil jury found Simpson liable in their deaths;
he was ordered to pay $33,500,000 in damages to the victims’ families. Little
of this sum has been paid.
Fred Goldman, present Friday at Simpson’s sentencing, said
he was satisfied to see him “where he belonged.”
