Disgraced football star O.J. Simpson was granted early release after his parole hearing on Thursday.
The 70-year-old appeared via a video-conference room from the Nevada Lovelock Correctional Facility to present his argument to four parole board members, who agreed to grant his leave from prison.
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Simpson, who was known as “Juice” during his football heyday, served nine years of a nine-to-33-year prison sentence after being convicted of a 2008 kidnapping and armed robbery at a hotel in Las Vegas, along with ten other crimes.
During his time behind bars, the Heisman trophy winner was the most famous inmate at the facility. Several of the staff members at the Nevada prison have spoken out about Simpson’s behavior during his time in lockup.
“Simpson has stayed out of trouble there,” said Brooke Keast, spokeswoman for the Nevada prisons system. “We haven’t heard much from him.”
More: O.J. Simpson Prosecutor Opens Up About That Infamous Glove
Leading up to the trial, Simpson was “sweating it,” according to former prison guard Jeffrey Felix.
“He’s under a lot of stress. His freedom is on the line,” Felix said while talking to Inside Edition. “He needs to be ready for his hearing.”
Other than his career in football and acting, Simpson is best known for his infamous 1995 acquittal in the slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. It was dubbed the “trial of the century” and is arguably the most infamous legal case in history.
The trial was the subject of a series titled American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. One of the prosecutors on the case, Chris Darden, recently spoke out about the Simpson.
One of the most pivotal moments in the trial was when Simpson was asked to try on the gloves found at the crime scene of Nicole Brown’s murder. He tried them on, but they seemed to not fit properly. This possibly was due to Simpson flexing his hand causing them to not fit.
In a clip from an Oxygen series called The Jury Speaks, Darden, who was portrayed by Sterling K. Brown in the award-winning FX show, addressed the iconic moment.
“O.J. putting the glove on, that’s the greatest courtroom demonstration in the history of American jurisprudence,” Darden said. “It’s beautiful, if you wanna see it for what it is, which is O.J. doing everything he can not to make the glove fit. But in reality, the way the glove fit on his hand in the courtroom is the way it fit on his hand in the photographs of him on the sidelines at professional football games.”
This interaction led to defense attorney Johnny Cochran’s famous line from the case, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
Photo Credit: Getty / Pool
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LOS ANGELES – MARCH 16: O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson pose at the premiere of the "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Isult" in which O.J. starred on March 16, 1994 in Los Angeles, California. -
LOVELOCK, NV – JULY 20: O.J. Simpson (C) arrives for his parole hearing with his attorney Malcolm LaVergne (L) at Lovelock Correctional Center July 20, 2017 in Lovelock, Nevada. Simpson is serving a nine to 33 year prison term for a 2007 armed robbery and kidnapping conviction.
