Published: October 4, 2008
LAS VEGAS — O.J. Simpson was found guilty late Friday on all 12 counts stemming from a confrontation in a hotel room last year, including armed robbery and kidnapping.
Mr. Simpson now faces 15 years to life for the kidnapping charge as well as a minimum of at least another 10 years in prison on the other charges. His attorney, Yale Galanter, said he would appeal.
The football Hall of Fame inductee showed little emotion as the verdicts were read and the judge denied him bail. As his sister, Carmelita, wept and fainted in the front row, he was led away in handcuffs. Mr. Simpson is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 5.
Clark County District Attorney David Roger, the lead prosecutor in the case, said his office would not comment on the case until after sentencing. None of the jurors spoke to the media on Friday.
The charges arose after Mr. Simpson led five cohorts on a raid of a Palace Station Hotel-Casino room and departed with hundreds of memorabilia items related to the sports careers of Mr. Simpson and three other athletes.
The items were in the possession of two memorabilia dealers, Bruce L. Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, who were led to believe that a prospective buyer was coming to browse the goods. Instead, Mr. Simpson and his group burst into the room. According to several witnesses, at least one gun was brandished.
The presence of a weapon adds years to the minimum sentences for nine of the 12 charges, which also included conspiracy to commit robbery and kidnapping, burglary, robbery, assault and coercion.
The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for 13 hours, mulling weeks of testimony as well as hours of surreptitious audio recordings of the planning and execution of the event by Thomas Riccio, a memorabilia auctioneer who arranged the confrontation.
There were no blacks among the jurors, a concern of the defense that Mr. Simpson’s attorneys said would likely be part of an appeal.
Convicted alongside Mr. Simpson, 61, was Clarence Stewart, 54, one of the five men who accompanied Mr. Simpson in the raid. Mr. Stewart faces the same sentences.
Throughout the trial, Mr. Stewart’s attorney E. Brent Bryson asked repeatedly for Mr. Stewart to receive a separate trial because associating with Mr. Simpson was poisonous to the defense. Each of his severance motions was denied.
“If there was ever a trial in the history of American jurisprudence that should have been severed, it was obviously this trial,” a stunned and dazed Mr. Bryson said. “There’s a spillover effect here. There’s a gentleman by the name of O.J. Simpson who was sitting across the table. Mr. Simpson has a certain history that followed him into the courtroom and, unfortunately, it engulfed Mr. Stewart also.”
Mr. Simpson’s defense was that he sought only to retrieve personal keepsakes such as ceremonial footballs from his Hall of Fame N.F.L. career and photographs of his family that were taken from his home years ago. Mr. Roger told the jury that he should have filed a civil lawsuit to regain the items if they were, in fact, stolen from him.
“We don’t want people going into rooms to take property,” said Mr. Roger in his closing arguments on Thursday. “That is robbery. You don’t go in and get a gun and demand property from people.”
Four of the 24 witnesses who testified were the other men who had accompanied Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart, all of whom have accepted plea deals from prosecutors in exchange for testimony. Two of them, Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton, carried guns in the incident, and one, Mr. McClinton, testified that he did so at Mr. Simpson’s request.
Mr. Simpson said he did not know that the two would carry weapons and never saw any guns displayed during the incident.
The verdict, which comes 13 years to the day after Mr. Simpson was acquitted in the highly publicized murders of his ex-wife and her friend, concluded a four-week trial that many have seen as a proxy for those unsatisfied by that 1995 outcome.
Mr. Simpson now faces 15 years to life for the kidnapping charge as well as a minimum of at least another 10 years in prison on the other charges. His attorney, Yale Galanter, said he would appeal.
The football Hall of Fame inductee showed little emotion as the verdicts were read and the judge denied him bail. As his sister, Carmelita, wept and fainted in the front row, he was led away in handcuffs. Mr. Simpson is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 5.
“He’s extremely upset, extremely emotional,” said Mr. Galanter of the demeanor of his client after being removed from the courtroom. “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.”
Clark County District Attorney David Roger, the lead prosecutor in the case, said his office would not comment on the case until after sentencing. None of the jurors spoke to the media on Friday.
The charges arose after Mr. Simpson led five cohorts on a raid of a Palace Station Hotel-Casino room and departed with hundreds of memorabilia items related to the sports careers of Mr. Simpson and three other athletes.
The items were in the possession of two memorabilia dealers, Bruce L. Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, who were led to believe that a prospective buyer was coming to browse the goods. Instead, Mr. Simpson and his group burst into the room. According to several witnesses, at least one gun was brandished.
The presence of a weapon adds years to the minimum sentences for nine of the 12 charges, which also included conspiracy to commit robbery and kidnapping, burglary, robbery, assault and coercion.
The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for 13 hours, mulling weeks of testimony as well as hours of surreptitious audio recordings of the planning and execution of the event by Thomas Riccio, a memorabilia auctioneer who arranged the confrontation.
There were no blacks among the jurors, a concern of the defense that Mr. Simpson’s attorneys said would likely be part of an appeal.
Convicted alongside Mr. Simpson, 61, was Clarence Stewart, 54, one of the five men who accompanied Mr. Simpson in the raid. Mr. Stewart faces the same sentences.
Throughout the trial, Mr. Stewart’s attorney E. Brent Bryson asked repeatedly for Mr. Stewart to receive a separate trial because associating with Mr. Simpson was poisonous to the defense. Each of his severance motions was denied.
“If there was ever a trial in the history of American jurisprudence that should have been severed, it was obviously this trial,” a stunned and dazed Mr. Bryson said. “There’s a spillover effect here. There’s a gentleman by the name of O.J. Simpson who was sitting across the table. Mr. Simpson has a certain history that followed him into the courtroom and, unfortunately, it engulfed Mr. Stewart also.”
Mr. Simpson’s defense was that he sought only to retrieve personal keepsakes such as ceremonial footballs from his Hall of Fame N.F.L. career and photographs of his family that were taken from his home years ago. Mr. Roger told the jury that he should have filed a civil lawsuit to regain the items if they were, in fact, stolen from him.
“We don’t want people going into rooms to take property,” said Mr. Roger in his closing arguments on Thursday. “That is robbery. You don’t go in and get a gun and demand property from people.”
Four of the 24 witnesses who testified were the other men who had accompanied Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart, all of whom have accepted plea deals from prosecutors in exchange for testimony. Two of them, Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton, carried guns in the incident, and one, Mr. McClinton, testified that he did so at Mr. Simpson’s request.
Mr. Simpson said he did not know that the two would carry weapons and never saw any guns displayed during the incident.
sources from: nytimes
When you answer a call your music will be paused automatically and when the call is ended the music will resume. This product is easy to install, simply plug it in to your cigar lighter, choose a frequency for the unit, tune your radio and your set. The unit also features rewind, pause and fast forward controls for simple music navigation. In the age of Bluetooth a handsfree car kit has become a necessity, and by pairing this one to an FM MP3 transmitter you can listen to your tunes and never miss a phone call!
Pop star Beyonce Knowles and rap mogul Jay-Z are reported to have finally married in New York.Speculation followed a swirl of activity at Jay-Z's flat which saw several delivery vans drop off silver candelabras and white flowers.A tent was set up on the roof and stars arrived - including Gwyneth Paltrow and Beyonce's ex-Destiny's Child bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams
Media sources are speculating that because both Beyonce and Jay-z were born on the fourth of their respective birth months, they wanted to get married April 4th, the fourth day of the fourth month, ok we get it, you like the number four.
Slam it to the left
