O.J. Simpson, the defendant in one of America’s most-publicized murder trials, has scored a legal victory after being granted early release from parole following an armed robbery conviction in 2008.
“Mr. Simpson has been on parole since October 1, 2017, and his parole term would otherwise expire on February 9, 2022,” Nevada State Police spokeswoman Kim Yoko Smith said in a statement. She added that the decision to grant early discharge was ratified on December 6.
The 2008 conviction was related to a confrontation he had a year prior in a Las Vegas hotel room. A sports memorabilia dealer accused Simpson and a group of other people of breaking into his room and robbing him at gunpoint. Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison and served nine of them, at which point he was granted parole.
In 1995, the former football star and media personality was famously found not guilty of the murders of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The story was one of the biggest on national television at the time, starting with the live broadcast of the police pursuit of Simpson’s car, after two stabbed bodies were found at the woman’s apartment.
Since his 2017 release from prison, Simpson has lived in a gated community in Las Vegas, often commenting on current affairs via social media.