LAS VEGAS — The latest chapter of O.J. Simpson's legal travails comes to a close today when he is sentenced for leading a ragtag band of hangers-on in the robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room.
Simpson, 61, faces life in prison after his conviction Oct. 3 for kidnapping and armed robbery, among other charges. The Heisman Trophy winner and NFL Hall of Fame running back is being held at the Clark County Detention Center as inmate No. 02648927. His only "contact visits" have been with defense attorneys Yale Galanter and Gabriel Grasso, who are planning to appeal.
"He's a very resilient guy," Galanter said Thursday. "He's handling this fairly well. He's hopeful. He believes in the criminal justice system. He believes he'll be exonerated."
Galanter has said that the jury of nine women and three men convicted Simpson because of his 1995 acquittal in the double-murder trial of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman -- not because of what unfolded in room 1203 of the Palace Station hotel.
The attorney said he hoped the 1995 acquittal -- which capped a lengthy trial that became a national obsession -- wouldn't sway Judge Jackie Glass.
"O.J. comes into court with a lot of baggage," Galanter said. "Even though he was acquitted in the mid-'90s, the public perception is that he did it." A civil jury in 1997 found Simpson liable for the deaths.
Galanter said he didn't know whether Simpson would speak at the sentencing hearing, where victims Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley are expected to testify. Beardsley has said he thinks the charges against Simpson should be dropped.
State parole authorities have recommended that Glass sentence Simpson to at least 18 years in prison, according to court papers filed this week. Thomas Pitaro, a local defense attorney who teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, law school, said judges here tend to closely follow such advice "unless there's a really compelling reason not to."
Defense attorneys argued that though Simpson showed poor judgment when he and five cohorts carried out $100,000 in footballs, baseballs and lithographs on Sept. 13, 2007, he was merely trying to recover stolen belongings.
A middleman named Thomas Riccio tricked the memorabilia dealers into meeting a "wealthy buyer" at the hotel, where Riccio secretly recorded their six-minute encounter with an angry Simpson.
