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Notorious ex-NFL star OJ Simpson has been granted parole after serving nine years of a thirty-three year sentence prison for armed robbery.
He was convicted of leading a group of four men — two of whom were armed — to storm a Las Vegas hotel in 2007 to steal sports memorabilia which he maintains was his property.
During the parole hearing, Simpson’s eldest daughter Arnelle spoke in favour of her father’s release:
“My experience is that he’s like my best friend and my rock. And as a family, we recognize that he is not the perfect man but he’s clearly a man and a father that has done his best to behave the way that speaks to his overall nature and character.
“Which is always to be positive no matter what. He has spent the last nine years in Lovelock as we all know and has been a perfect inmate following all the rules and making the best of the situation.
“The choice that he made nine years ago, that resulted in this sentencing were clearly inappropriate and wrong and counterproductive to what he was trying to achieve.
“As a family, we were all there to celebrate a wedding of a very good friend. As his daughter, I can honestly say my dad recognizes that he took the wrong approach and could not handle the situation – he could have handled the situation differently.
“My siblings and I and family know that he didn’t make the right decision on that day, but we know that his intentions were not to go in and to just make the wrong decision at the wrong time.
“Throughout this ordeal, we have remained close. We have stayed strong and I, for myself, am grateful to god for giving us the strength to get through this last nine years and to stay positive always, no matter what.
“And a lot of that is because of him. So, on behalf of my family, my brother, my sister, an aunt, an uncle, his friends, we just want him to come home. We really do. We want him to come home, and I know in my heart that he is very humbled throughout the situation.
“This has been hard. I’m going to be honest. This has been really, truly hard. And there’s no right or wrong way to explain how to handle this. But we do know that, I know that, he is remorseful. He truly is remorseful, and we just want him to come home so that we can move forward for us, quietly, but to move forward.”
The only surviving member of the men caught in an armed robbery during Simpson’s raid on sports memorabilia dealers said the former football player has served his time and also asked for Simpson’s release.
OJ was joined by close friend Tom Scotto, his sister Shirley Baker and Arnelle. He’ll move to Florida after his release, and will have $400,000 in NFL pension waiting for him.
He said “thank you, thank you, thank you” when he was granted parole.
There were wild reports earlier this week that Simpson had hurt his parole chances after being caught masturbating in his cell, but they were quickly shut down by law enforcement.
“It is against Nevada Dept. of Corrections policy to release inmate disciplinary history to the public,” the prison told TMZ.
“It is also against policy to release inaccurate information. No official from our department would have released the information in question.”
Of course Simpson is probably still best known for being acquitted of murdering ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after ‘the trial of the century’.
“I’m not a guy who lived a criminal life,” Simpson said at one point during the latest hearing. Something sure to raise a few eyebrows considering he was violent towards his ex-wife.
OJ during his notorious murder trial.
A juror who helped acquit O.J Simpson from his notorious murder trial previously said “it’s obvious” OJ would get parole.
“I don’t have any feelings one way or the other, other than I guess it’s obvious that he’s probably going to get parole,” Lionel “Lon” Cryer told Page Six before the hearing.
“I would only hope that Mr Simpson would realise that he’s been blessed. He’s been given a gift especially with the fact that he wasn’t convicted for killing his wife [Nicole Brown Simpson] and Ron Goldman.
“I would hope that he would actually try to come out and do something productive with his life. Make an obvious effort to try to help somebody else or something like that.
“Try to change his own image if he could. I think that that would work better for him. If possible, try to stay out of the limelight,” Cryer said.
Fred Goldman, the father of Rod Goldman, has previously said Simpson should remain locked up.
WATCH: OJ Simpson’s former attorney talk about his acquittal.
