O.J. Simpson granted parole and says he will return to Florida when released from prison

O.J. Simpson, appearing as inmate No. 1027820 in front of a Nevada parole board, learned Thursday he will be a free man in October and said he plans to return to Florida, the state where he lived before he went to prison nearly nine years ago.

The former NFL star and actor told the board’s four members that he would leave Nevada after his release from a state prison, where he served time for charges connected to an armed robbery attempt in a Las Vegas hotel room.

“Thank you, thank you,” Simpson, 70, told the board after the decision was reached.

“I have four kids,” Simpson said when a parole officer asked why he wanted out of prison. “I’ve missed a lot of time with those kids.”

“I’ve done my time,” he added.

After Simpson’s testimony to the board, his daughter Arnelle Simpson, spoke on his behalf. She said that no one knows how much their family has been through.

“As a family we recognize he’s not the perfect man,” she said. “But as a man and a father he has done his best.”

In 2007, police arrested Simpson for enlisting men, some with guns, to retrieve stolen autographed footballs and other items he said had been taken from him several years earlier. The following year, a judge sentenced him to 33 years at a Nevada state prison for 12 charges including robbery and assault. Simpson received parole on some of those charges in 2013 — but wasn’t released — when he last appeared in front of the board that heard his request Thursday.

Simpson said he was sincerely contrite for the robbery attempt before the board made its decision, and that he “wished it would have never happened.” He said if granted parole, “I want to get back to my kids and my family.”

His oldest child, Arnelle, told the parole board Simpson was her “best friend and my rock,” and that she had seen her father humbled by his prison sentence.

“We want him to come home so that we can move forward for us,” she said.

Parole board members voted on Simpson’s parole immediately after the hearing. Among the factors they cited in their decision was Simpson’s clean prison record while he was incarcerated.

Simpson smiled widely and appeared to be near tears after the decision was read. He will remain in the medium-security Lovelock Correctional Center until October. A longtime friend of Simpson, Tom Scotto, told USA Today before the hearing that Simpson might live with him in Naples after he is released.

 

Simpson bought a home in South Florida in 2000, five years after he was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in the TV trial of the century. He had been found liable in civil court for their deaths in 1997 and ordered to pay $33.5 million to their surviving relatives. That same year, he had sold the expensive Brentwood estate where he had lived when the killings occurred, and where he had driven his white Bronco during the infamous 1994 police chase that ended with his arrest.

When he moved to South Florida, he traded it for the gated four-bedroom, four-bath home in Kendall he purchased for $575,000, and enrolled his son Justin and daughter Sydney in the private Gulliver Schools. But despite afternoons spent on quiet golf courses nearby and the occasional restaurant outing at his favorite local Roasters N’ Toasters deli with his kids, notoriety followed him.

Requests for autographs and photos were common, as were shouts of “Juice” when he walked through the neighborhood — a call-back to his nickname when he was a running back for the Buffalo Bills in the 1970s. The national press descended on South Florida to document such moments, when Simpson was charged for a road-rage incident alleged in December 2000. Another driver had alleged Simpson grabbed his glasses and scratched his face after he honked at Simpson for running a red light, but Simpson was acquitted the following October.

Federal and local law enforcement also searched Simpson’s home in 2001 for evidence of involvement in Ecstasy smuggling and found nothing, though the search turned up “bootloader” devices that did lead to a 2005 civil trial judgment forcing Simpson to pay $25,000 to DirecTV for pirating satellite signals.

In 2002, he was cited for speeding on a boat through a manatee zone and fined.

A handful of 911 calls to Miami-area police over the years also documented spats between him and his on-again, off-again girlfriend Christie Prody. One involved an argument at a Miami hotel, which included allegations of Prody slapping and kicking him. But no charges were filed in those cases.

In 2007, police arrested Simpson for trying to orchestrate the heist of autographed footballs and other items he said had been stolen from him several years earlier. Though Simpson claimed stupidity rather than criminal intent in taking back what he said was his, a judge sentenced him to 33 years in prison, with eligibility for parole in about nine years.

But despite his parole and release, it’s unlikely he’ll return to the same South Florida life he had before his Vegas trial. The foreclosed home in Kendall has been put up for sale.

McClatchy reporter Kate Irby contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 20, 2017 at 1:52 PM with the headline "O.J. Simpson granted parole and says he will return to Florida when released from prison."