Yahoo News O. J. Simpson ordered to be released from prison
O. J. Simpson has been granted prison release a decade after his conviction on armed robbery and kidnapping charges in Nevada.
The one-time Hollywood superstar and NFL great's appearance in a Las Vegas parole hearing on Thursday (July 20) attracted mass media coverage, including US networks airing the proceedings live from gavel to gavel.
Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison in 2008 for his involvement in the taking of sports memorabilia (which allegedly once belonged to him) from a Las Vegas collector in an armed standoff.
During Thursday's hearing, Simpson defended his behaviour in taking back what he believed was rightfully his on that infamous night in 2007 - which was documented in detail in the Academy Award-winning documentary O.J.: Made in America.
O.J. Simpson at parole hearing: "I basically have spent a conflict-free life" https://t.co/JSrkOKh3F1
- NBC News (@NBCNews) July 20, 2017
"I basically have spent a conflict-free life," he argued.
The parole board unanimously voted to grant the athlete parole under the proviso that Simpson not commit any criminal acts once freed. He is now expected to be paroled on October 1.
The hearing got off to a surprisingly bizarre start when a member of the parole board wrongly claimed that 70-year-old OJ had "very recently turned 90 years old".
When her mistake was pointed up, the parole board member joked: "You look great for 90."
Of course, today's parole hearing head no connection whatsoever to the double-murder of his former former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and waiter Ronald Goldman in 1994.
(Cuba Gooding Jr and Courtney B Vance in the People v OJ Simpson finale)
His controversial acquittal in the case was dramatised in the critically-acclaimed, Primetime Emmy Award-winning The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, in which he was portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr..
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