O.J. Simpson, center, with his attorneys during his sentencing hearing in Las Vegas on Friday. (Isaac Brekken/The Associated Press)

O.J. Simpson gets 9 years in prison

By Steve Friess

Published: December 5, 2008

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LAS VEGAS: O.J. Simpson, the one-time American football great who was acquitted of murder in a sensational trial 13 years ago, was sentenced Friday to a minimum of nine years in prison for his role in a raid on a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007 in which two collectibles dealers were robbed of a trove of sports memorabilia.

Shortly before the sentence, Simpson, wearing a blue prison jumpsuit, his arms handcuffed in front of him, made a surprise statement in which he told Judge Jackie Glass of Clark County District Court: "I didn't want to hurt anybody. I didn't know I was doing anything wrong."

"I stand before you somewhat confused," Simpson, his voice breaking, said in the rambling statement in which he uttered the word "sorry" at least four times.

Glass seemed unimpressed. "The evidence was overwhelming," she said before pronouncing sentence first on one of Simpson's five accomplices, Clarence Stewart, 54, and then on Simpson himself.

The two men were convicted of the same 12 charges, including kidnapping and armed robbery, stemming from the incident at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino.

"It was an itty-bitty room and a lot of you big guys in that itty-bitty room," Glass said. "That was, 'Nobody leave this room.' That was actually a very violent event. Guns were brought; one was displayed. The potential for harm to occur in that room was tremendous."

Before the sentencing, the judge denied a defense motion that Simpson be released on bail pending appeal.

Simpson was convicted on Oct. 3, 13 years to the day after he was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

This time, a jury found Simpson guilty of storming into a hotel room in September 2007 with a group of five friends, at least two of whom carried guns, and seizing memorabilia worth thousands of dollars from the dealers, Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley.

Simpson did not testify at the three-week trial and has been in custody at the Clark County Detention Center since his conviction. In interviews after his arrest, he said that he had gone to the hotel only to recover personal items stolen from the trophy room of his home in Los Angeles and that he was unaware the other men were armed.

Four of his accomplices pleaded guilty and testified against Simpson, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, at a trial that played out like a low-key echo of his circuslike trial in 1995.

Lawyers for Simpson and Stewart have said they will appeal the convictions. Simpson's lead lawyer, Yale Galanter, said his legal team planned to challenge the outcome on several grounds. The lawyers argue that jury selection was manipulated to produce a panel with no blacks; Simpson is black. They also argue that Glass biased jurors by engaging in theatrics like berating lawyers and witnesses, sighing and waving her hands in disgust.

"What she did was horrible towards the defense, and that really does have an impact on jurors," said a criminal defense lawyer not associated with the case, Dayvid Figler. "They can easily make a greatest hits of her screaming or yelling 'Shut up!' or other signals to the jury."

Another criminal defense lawyer, David Chesnoff, said Stewart might have a better chance for an appeal, because Glass denied repeated requests by his lawyers for a separate trial to avoid Stewart's being associated with the notoriety attached to Simpson.

"There are some issues on severance for Stewart that the Nevada Supreme Court has been sensitive to in the past," said Chesnoff, who has represented Martha Stewart and Mike Tyson, among other celebrity clients.

"I saw a great deal of the trial," he said. "I didn't see any egregious errors by the judge. She knows the rules of evidence."

In a glittering career as a running back in the 1970s, Simpson was one of the most famous American football players of his generation. But he became the prime suspect in the savage 1994 murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, who had divorced him two years earlier, and Goldman, outside her home in Los Angeles. She was attacked so savagely that she was almost decapitated.

Simpson, who has always maintained his innocence in the killings, was acquitted after a racially charged trial in 1995. In a civil suit two years later, a jury found by the preponderance of evidence that he was liable for the deaths, and he was ordered to pay damages to the victims' families totaling $33.5 million.

Little of the civil judgment has been collected, and the Goldman family, which has aggressively pursued Simpson's assets, is expected to push for hearings to determine who owns the Simpson-related items seized in the raid.

"There's going to have to be a separate hearing regarding the disposition of the property," said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who covered the murder trial for CBS News. "Some of the property the Goldmans have a claim to. Some of the property belonged to the victims. And some of it may rightfully belong to O.J. Simpson, so it would go back to his family."