OJ Simpson gets 15 years in jail

OJ Simpson was jailed for 15 years today for kidnapping and armed robbery.

The former American football star recruited five other men to help him rob two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room on September 13 last year, a jury at Clark County District Court found.

He was convicted of all 12 charges he faced in October after more than 13 continuous hours of jury deliberations – 13 years to the day after he was cleared of double murder in America’s “trial of the century”.

Judge Jackie Glass told Simpson he knew what he was doing and that his actions were "much more than stupidity".

“You went to the room, you took guns... you used force, you took property... and in this state that amounts to robbery with use of a deadly weapon,” she said.

The judge also told Simpson that she had “respect” for his acquittal of double murder in 1995 and added that she did not take into account that many people disagreed with that not-guilty verdict.

She said her role was not to invoke “retribution or payback” for anything else.

Earlier, in a quiet voice, Simpson apologised for his stupidity and told the judge it was “the first time I had the opportunity to catch the guys red-handed who’d been stealing from my family”.

“I stand before you today. I’m sorry, somewhat confused,” he said in an emotional statement during today’s sentencing hearing.

Wearing a dark blue jail uniform, he said he knew the victims involved, but had no hatred towards them.

“I didn’t ask anybody to do anything but to stand behind me, allow me to yell at these guys and then help me remove those things,” he said.

“And if they wouldn’t let me remove them, then we would call the cops on them because I thought that they were wrong.

“In no way did I mean to hurt anybody, to steal anything from anyone.”

He said he had been set up with false claims that he had appeared in a pornographic video since his high-profile 1995 trial and added that he frequently saw his possessions, including photographs which he claimed were stolen from him, appear in the media.

“I wasn’t there to hurt anybody, I just wanted my personal things,” he said.

“And I realise I was stupid and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to steal anything from anybody and I didn’t know I was doing anything illegal.

“I thought I was confronting friends and retrieving my property.

“So I’m sorry, I’m sorry for all of it.”

Referring to his co-defendant, his long-time golfing friend Clarence CJ Stewart, Simpson went on: “All the other guys except Mr Stewart volunteered, they wanted to go. Mr Stewart is the only person that I asked, would he come to help me.

“But I didn’t mean to hurt anybody and I didn’t mean to steal from anybody.”

Simpson will serve a minimum of nine years in jail before being eligible for parole, meaning he will be at least 70 before being released.

He was given a fixed term of 15 years for the kidnapping charges, with the possibility of parole after five, and a consecutive sentence of a further one to six years for the “additional danger the weapon posed”.

But his minimum sentence will be defined by his punishment for a number of lesser charges, which will run consecutively.

He was sentenced to a minimum of five years for robbery with use of a deadly weapon, with at least another year due to the involvement of a gun.

This will run consecutively with two minimum 18-month sentences for two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, each of which will also run consecutively, taking his total minimum sentence to nine years.

US prosecutors had recommended an 18-year sentence for the 61-year-old former actor and National Football League star, but his defence team asked for just six.

Simpson, who did not give evidence during his three-week trial, claimed he had only been recovering personal items stolen from his trophy room, and said he was unaware that his cohorts were armed.

But four of Simpson’s accomplices struck plea deals with prosecutors and gave evidence against the former star in the trial, which attracted much less attention than the high-profile circus-like 1995 case in which he was cleared of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, by a predominantly black jury in Los Angeles.

The 1995 verdict shocked the world and prompted debates over the racial elements of the case and the suitability of televised trials.

During this year’s trial, district attorney David Roger, prosecuting, told the all-white jury Simpson was the leader of a conspiracy and none of the men with him cared about the memorabilia in the room.

Several game balls, plaques and photos once owned by Simpson, who was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame during his career, were among the items stolen.

Deputy district attorney Chris Owens added that Simpson took a gang of men to the Palace Station hotel and casino to retrieve items he lost while trying to hide them from the family of Mr Goldman and the California court which levied a 33.5 million dollar (£22.9 million) civil wrongful death judgment against Simpson.

He urged the jury to uncover the “true face” of the former star, and said it was “not necessarily the one he puts out to the world”.

Four of the five men who accompanied Simpson to the casino – Charles Cashmore, Walter “Goldie” Alexander, Michael “Spencer” McClinton and Charles Ehrlich - accepted plea deals and agreed to testify for the prosecution.

The fifth, Clarence “CJ” Stewart, 54 – his golfing friend and co-defendant in the trial – was also convicted of all charges and sentenced to 15 years, with an additional one to six years for the “additional danger the weapon posed”.

He will serve a minimum of six years before being eligible for parole.

Judge Glass, who rejected several mistrial motions and kept a tight rein on the proceedings, also warned jurors against trying to punish Simpson over the death of his former wife.

Before the trial began, one prospective juror was dismissed after she told the court she “felt he got away with murder” in 1995.

In 2006, Simpson wrote a book called If I Did It, which set out how he might have murdered his wife, had he been so inclined.

But the book was withdrawn and pulped by HarperCollins shortly before being published.

In August last year, a Florida bankruptcy court gave the rights to the book to the Goldman family, who published it under the title I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.

The former star and his almost-forgotten co-defendant Stewart were both found guilty of all 12 charges they faced in October.

These were two counts of first degree kidnapping, two counts of armed robbery, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of coercion with a deadly weapon, burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit a crime, kidnapping and robbery.