O.J. Simpson Parole Hearing May Be Last Chapter of Miniseries

FILE In this May 14, 2013 pool file photo, O.J. Simpson sits during a break on the second day of an evidentiary hearing in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas. Simpson, the former football star, TV pitchman and now Nevada prison inmate, will have a lot going for him when he appears before state parole board members Thursday, July 20, 2017 seeking his release after more than eight years for an ill-fated bid to retrieve sports memorabilia.

Former football superstar O.J. Simpson could be released from a Nevada prison as early as October if all goes well at Thursday's parole board hearing to be televised live by ESPN and streamed by several websites.

Simpson has served eight years of his nine to 33-year sentence after being found guilty in 2008 of armed robbery, kidnapping and a host of other charges related to an altercation with two sports memorabilia dealers inside a Las Vegas hotel.

ESPN's Outside the Lines is set to air a 90-minute special at 1 p.m. Thursday featuring live coverage of Simpson's parole hearing in Carson City, Nevada. Simpson, who 12 days ago turned 70, will testify on video from the Lovelock Correctional Facility in Lovelock, Nevada, a medium-security facility more than 400 miles from Las Vegas, the site of Simpson's crimes.

Simpson is expected to be accompanied at Lovelock by his attorney, Malcolm LaVergne, a Las Vegas-based personal injury lawyer, according to the LaVergne's website. While the wall-to-wall coverage could be a platform for LaVergne, so far he has declined comment on the hearing, other than telling ESPN that he expected Simpson to try to stay out of the public spotlight if he is freed.

The board's deliberations will not be public, but a decision is expected. If the four parole commissioners who are scheduled to conduct the hearing cannot agree unanimously on whether to release Simpson, the remaining three members will be contacted immediately to review the case and vote until there is a majority for approval or denial.

Testimony is limited to the inmate, a representative of the inmate, if any, victims of the crime and one family member or supporter of the inmate. The board will consider confidential information, including a pre-sentence investigation, a parole hearing report, a risk assessment and letters of support or opposition, if any.

Simpson's chances of being paroled are thought to be good. The board in 2013 granted Simpson parole on several of the charges related to his conviction namely kidnapping, robbery and burglary. But he remained ineligible for time still to be served on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and related sentencing issues.

Simpson has always maintained he was trying to retrieve personal mementos stolen from him after his 1995 acquittal in the killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.

He said family photos and other items disappeared before February 1997, when a judge found him liable for the deaths of Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to their estates.

Ten years later, the Pro Football Hall of Fame star, actor and advertising pitchman was living in Miami when he and several friends hatched a plan with a middleman to meet the collectibles sellers in a room at the Palace Station hotel-casino.

Simpson and five others were later arrested. Four co-defendants pleaded guilty before trial to felony charges and testified for the prosecution. Two told jurors they brought and displayed guns, though Simpson insisted he never knew anyone was armed.

Simpson and Clarence C.J. Stewart stood trial. Both were found guilty in October 2008 of charges also including assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and conspiracy.

Stewart was sentenced to seven-plus to 27 years in state prison. He served 27 months before the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that Simpson's fame tainted the jury and that Stewart should have been tried separately.

The network's belief that there is still great interest in Simpson is being borne out. More than 240 media credentials have been approved, according to the Nevada Department of Corrections, and a dozen satellite trucks are expected at the sites in both in Carson City and Lovelock.

ESPN fueled the fascination in 2016 with its Oscar-winning documentary O.J.: Made in America. That documentary, along with the huge ratings last year for the FX miniseries on the Simpson case, The People v. O.J. Simpson, demonstrated that interest in the disgraced and incarcerated Simpson remains high, even though he's been out of public view, and reportedly ailing with diabetes, for years.

Contact Todd Cunningham at tcunningham@alm.com. On Twitter: @toddcnnnghm