The 'Juice is loose' no more: OJ heading to prison for nevada robbery rap

13 years removed from his acquittal in the murder of his ex-wife and a waiter from LA’s then trendy Mezzaluna Restaurant, OJ Simpson was sentenced to a lengthy prison term on Friday for his part in what prosecutors described as a botched robbery attempt.  OJ will spend a minimum of nine years in a Nevada State Prison before any potential parole eligibility. 

Simpson’s side of the story was that he and several cohorts were attempting to retrieve sports memorabilia that belonged to him on September 13, 2007 in Las Vegas.  OJ maintained that these items had been “stolen” from him, and hatched a scheme to storm a hotel room and hold a couple of memorabilia dealers at gunpoint to retrieve them.  What OJ obviously forgot to consider is the extensive array of surveillance video cameras employed by casino properties, nor the fact that one of his cohorts secretly made an audio recording of the event.

Depending on how things go for OJ behind bars, and how receptive the parole board is to his initial requests for early release he could serve as many as 33 years in prison.  More likely, however, is that he’ll be out sooner than that with most legal analysts throwing around a figure of 11 years.  His attorneys will appeal, claiming among other things that the jury was biased by all of the publicity surrounding his 1995 murder acquittal and that this guilty verdict represented an effort to “get even” with ‘The Juice’.  Regardless, he was denied bail during the appeals process and is on his way to the High Desert Minimum Security Prison in Indian Springs, Nevada thirty five miles Northwest of Las Vegas.

Simpson showed up in court wearing a standard issue blue v-neck convict jumpsuit and was handcuffed and shackled.  Before the sentence was announced, OJ made a rambling and semi-incoherent plea for leniency in which he attempted to apologize for his misdeeds stating that:

"I didn't mean to steal anything from anybody ... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all of it."

OJ’s attorney Yale Galanter reaffirmed the difficulty in separating the perception that his client got away with murder from the current conviction:

"It really made us all aware that despite our best efforts, it's very difficult to separate the California case from the Nevada case."

Despite that, Galanter was fairly pleased with the sentence—though he noted that it was dubious consolation to OJ:

"We were preparing Mr. Simpson for the worst. We felt we did really well. Obviously, he's upset about the possibility of doing nine years."