OJ Simpson faces life in jail for casino robbery

FALLEN sports star OJ Simpson will wake up in jail today with the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars after being found guilty of kidnapping and armed robbery in Las Vegas.

After a dramatic late-night ending to his four-week trial, an all-white jury of nine women and three men unanimously found him guilty of all 12 charges after more than 13 continuous hours of deliberations.

They started 13 years to the day after he was cleared of a double murder in America's 'trial of the century'.

Simpson, 61, now faces 15 years to life for the kidnapping charge as well as a minimum of at least an additional 10 years in prison on the other charges. His attorney, Yale Galanter, said yesterday he would appeal.

After the verdicts were read, the judge revoked the bail for Simpson, an inductee in the US National Football Hall of Fame. As his sister, Carmelita, wept and fainted in the front row, he was led away in handcuffs.

Simpson is scheduled to be sentenced on December 5.

Galanter said he believed the jury might have been exacting revenge for Simpson being cleared of murdering his former wife and her lover more than a decade ago. "I don't like to use the word payback," he said. "I can tell you, from the beginning my biggest concern... was whether or not the jury would be able to separate their very strong feelings about Mr Simpson and judge him fairly and honestly."

Galanter described Simpson as "extremely upset, extremely emotional. We knew this was going to be very difficult. We knew the jury was going to be very difficult. We knew the jurisdiction would be very difficult."

The former American football star kidnapped two sports memorabilia dealers and robbed them at gunpoint in a room at the Palace Station hotel and casino in Las Vegas on September 13 last year, the jury at the Clark County District Court found.

It has been a momentous fall from grace for the former actor and National Football League star, whose high-profile 1995 trial saw him cleared by a predominantly black jury in Los Angeles of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The verdict shocked the world and prompted debates over the racial elements of the case and the suitability of televised trials.

In Las Vegas, Simpson, wearing a dark suit with a white shirt and grey tie, blew out his cheeks, sighed heavily and nodded as the verdicts were read out. Looking tired, he stood next to his defence counsel at the back of the court and occasionally looked down or to the side, shifting his weight from foot to foot, as the verdicts were read out in the late-night hearing in courtroom 15a.

The moment he was convicted, the lights went out, plunging the courtroom into darkness, and security officers told everyone to stay where they were.

The lights were on an automatic timer and went off at 11pm local time before coming back on within seconds. Moments later, Simpson's hands were cuffed behind his back and, on live TV, he was led out of the court.

District Attorney David Roger, prosecuting, said Simpson was the leader of a conspiracy last year and none of the men with him cared about the memorabilia in the room.

Deputy district attorney Chris Owens added that Simpson took a gang of men to the Palace Station to retrieve items he lost while trying to hide them from the family of Goldman and the California court, which levied a $33.5m (£18.9m) civil wrongful death judgment against Simpson.

He urged the jury to uncover the "true face" of the former star, and said it was "not necessarily the one he puts out to the world".

Four of the five men who accompanied Simpson to the casino – Charles Cashmore, Walter 'Goldie' Alexander, Michael 'Spencer' McClinton and Charles Ehrlich – have accepted plea deals and agreed to testify for the prosecution.

The fifth, Clarence 'CJ' Stewart, 54, Simpson's golfing friend and co-defendant, was also found guilty on all 12 charges: two counts of first degree kidnapping; two counts of armed robbery; two counts of assault with a deadly weapon; two counts of coercion with a deadly weapon; burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit a crime, kidnapping and robbery.

Galanter, defending Simpson, said the case had "taken on a life of its own because of Mr Simpson's involvement". He continued: "Every co-operator, every person who had a gun, every person who had an ulterior motive, every person who signed a book deal, every person who got paid money – the police, the district attorney's office, is only interested in one thing: Mr Simpson," Galanter said. "He has always been the target of this investigation."

Neither Simpson nor Stewart gave evidence during the three-week trial, and jurors were instructed not to consider that when judging the case.

Judge Jackie Glass, who rejected several mistrial motions and kept a tight rein on the proceedings, also warned jurors against trying to punish Simpson over the death of his former wife.

Before the trial began, a prospective juror was dismissed after she told the court that she "felt he got away with murder".

The judge has kept a strict timetable throughout the three-week trial, with court starting at 8am each day and sitting until 6pm.

Once they retired to consider their verdicts, the jurors continued in this fashion, sitting through lunch and dinner, and ordering food in as they completed their deliberations in a single day – the anniversary of Simpson's 1995 acquittal.

In 2006, Simpson wrote a book called If I Did It, which set out how he might have murdered his wife, had he been so inclined.

But the book was withdrawn and pulped by HarperCollins shortly before being published.

In August last year, a Florida bankruptcy court gave the rights to the book to the Goldman family, who published it under the title I Did It: Confessions Of The Killer.