OJ Simpson Granted Parole After Serving 9 Years

OJ Simpson was granted parole yesterday after serving almost nine years for armed robbery and kidnapping.

A Nevada parole board decided to free the former NFL running back, after he apologised for his role in the crime and explained that he’d been a model prisoner. The 70-year-old had served nine years of his 33 year sentence in Lovelock Prison, Nevada.

Simpson said, “I’ve done my time. I’ve done it as well and as respectfully as I think anyone can.”

In 2007 Simpson led a group of men into a room at the Palace Station hotel-casino, Las Vegas, where they held the occupants at gunpoint and took some sports memorabilia.

Simpson claims that the items were his, stolen from him originally, and that he was only trying to get them back. He also maintains that he never pulled a weapon during the incident, and that he was unaware that his companions were carrying guns. He was convicted in 2008.

Simpson has lived a long life in the spotlight. He was a star football player by 19, and went on to become an NFL star and actor.

Simpson was also the subject of what has since been dubbed ‘The Trial of the Century.’ In 1995 he went on trial for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

They were stabbed to death in outside of her Los Angeles home in June, 1994. Simpson was acquitted of the murders in 1995, in a verdict that 100 million people worldwide tuned in to watch. No one has ever been convicted of the crime.

Ron Goldman’s family, who won a wrongful death civil suit against Simpson, spoke to Good Morning America ahead of Simpson’s parole hearing. Goldman’s sister said, “With [Simpson] being locked up in Lovelock, it’s been a chance for us to kind of reclaim some control over our life and have some glimpse of sanity…I’m preparing myself for that to change come October.”

When he is released in October, Simpson plans to return to Florida, and catch-up on the time lost with his children.