O.J. GETS PAROLE

O.J. Simpson on Thursday was granted parole after serving nine years of his 33-year prison sentence for armed robbery and assault in Las Vegas a decade ago.

The decision was made after the disgraced football star expressed regret for his actions, which he said occurred after having a few drinks and misjudging the situation.

“I haven’t made any excuses in the nine years that I’ve been here, and I’m not trying to make an excuse now,” he said.

In 2007, Simpson and several friends, including Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, burst into a Las Vegas hotel room armed with guns and stole about $ 100,000 worth of his sports memorabilia from collectors Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong, who had been expecting to meet a wealthy buyer.

Simpson argued the memorabilia and personal family photos were taken from him and he was merely trying to get the items back. He also claimed he didn’t know his associates, who were acting as security guards, had guns with them.

Simpson was convicted in 2008 of robbery and assault charges exactly 13 years after a jury found him not guilty of killing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Stewart was also convicted for his role, but was released more than a year later after the Nevada Supreme Court overturned his conviction, finding that he had been denied a fair trial by being tried alongside the much more famous — and controversial — Simpson.

Speaking to parole board members on Thursday, Simpson maintained that he had no idea two men he was with were armed and was only there to retrieve property that authorities later determined belonged to him.

“You know? It’s — it was my property,” he told board members. “I wasn’t there to steal from anybody. And I would never, ever pull a weapon, ever pull a weapon on anybody.”

Simpson, now 70, could be released as soon as Oct. 1 if a second round of parole is granted Thursday, a move many expect to happen given little, if any, opposition. Beardsley died in 2015, and Fromong has said that while he suffered several heart attacks and significant financial losses after the robbery, he has forgiven Simpson.

Simpson was accompanied at the hearing by his attorney, Malcolm LaVergne, his sister, Shirley Baker, and his daughter, Arnelle Simpson, who addressed the board.

“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,” Arnelle Simpson said. But, she added, “he truly is remorseful, and we just want him to come home so that we can move forward for us.”

Fromong also addressed the board, saying he is still friends Simpson and feels nine years in prison was too long for someone who didn’t personally take part in the violence.

“This is a good man,” he said. “He made a mistake.”

The board took a recess to deliberate and were expected to return within the hour to deliver their decision.

Simpson was previously granted parole in 2013 for a series of charges related to the robbery, but had to wait another four years to become eligible for parole on the remaining convictions.

Simpson told parole board members Thursday that he had spent his years at the Lovelock Correctional Facility in Nevada helping prisoners avoid conflict, coordinate and manage a prison yard softball league, and taking victim empathy and anger management classes.

“I’m not a guy that has conflicts on the street,” he said. “I don’t expect to have any when I — when I leave here.”

Simpson also said he has apologized to all the victims involved and truly regrets his actions.

In the end, all four parole board members voted to grant Simpson early release, which could happen as soon as October.

But even when he is set free, Simpson’s legal troubles are far from over.

He was found civilly liable in 1997 for the deaths of Brown and Goldman and was ordered to pay their families $ 33.5 million. However, the attorney for the Goldman family, David Cook, told BuzzFeed News that the amount Simpson now owes has grown to more than $ 50 million.

“He has paid zip,” Cook said.

It is unclear if Simpson still receives a football pension that was once estimated at $ 19,000 a month, but even if he did, that money would be “near impossible” to reach an amount to satisfy for the civil judgment, Cook added. Any movie or television residuals, though, “we reach that.”

Simpson’s ability to earn money has been hampered by his incarceration, but he again became part of the national conversation with The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, the FX hit that chronicled his dramatic murder trial of 1995.

What happens after prison is anyone’s guess.

“We are all strangers in O.J. Simpson’s strange land,” Cook said, “because at every turn it gets stranger and stranger, from the white Bronco, the LA trial, to the acquittal, to the wrongful death.”