After spending nearly a decade in prison, former NFL running back O.J. Simpson will be a free man later this year.
Simpson, 70, was freed after a parole board in Nevada granted it. He was told that he organized a crime in which two victims were robbed at gunpoint.
But they added: “You are low risk to re-offend on our guidelines. You have community support. We have heard from you and your victim.”
After he was granted parole, Simpson told them, “Thank you, thank you.” He also bowed his head, according to a live stream of the hearing.
As he walked out of the Lovelock Correctional Center, he raised his arms before saying, “Yes” and “Oh God.”
His attorney said he is “very happy and very emotional” for the result, adding, “He is just so polarizing that it was hard to know the certainty of this.”
Simpson’s parole eligibility date is Oct. 1, 2017.
In 2007, he said that during the 2007 robbery at a Las Vegas hotel, he wanted to get his personal mementos from “some guys” who were trying to “fence” him, ABC News reported.
Explaining himself, he told the board: “As a perfect storm, we all ended up in Las Vegas, you know?” He added, “You know? Actually guys who helped me move, helped me move and store some of this stuff.”
Simpson said he entered the hotel room that night, saying he only saw some baseballs. “All I want is my property … I wasn’t there to steal from anybody,” he said.
Meanwhile, he claimed he “would never, ever pull a weapon.”
A victim of the incident, Bruce Fromong, said that some of Simpson’s items were there.
“He was led to believe that on that day, there were going to be thousands of pieces of his personal memorabilia, pictures of his wife from his first marriage, pictures of his kids,” Fromong told ABC. “He was told there were going to be possibly his wife’s wedding ring, thousands of things. He was misled about what was going to be there that day.”
Fromong added that Simpson didn’t pull a gun on him.
