How OJ Simpson Became an Armed Robber 13 Years After Acquittal of Double Murder by Stealing Sports Memorabilia at Gun … and Then Served Nine Years in Prison

More than a decade after OJ Simpson was acquitted of the double murder of his ex-wife and her friend, he decided to commit another crime – one that had a link back to his infamous case.

Simpson, whose death was announced Thursday after a battle with prostate cancer, was found guilty in 2007 of robbing a memorabilia dealer at gunpoint. Simpson was sentenced to 33 years behind bars, but was released on parole after just nine.

On September 13, 2007, a group of robbers led by the disgraced football player entered room 1203 of the Palace Station Hotel in Las Vegas and stole sports memorabilia from Bruce Fromong and other dealers.

Simpson had claimed after his arrest that he recovered items “stolen” from him. The memorabilia includes pieces taken and sold to cover money for the Ronald Goldman family after Simpson was found civilly liable — despite a criminal acquittal — for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Goldman.

“(I) called OJ,” said Tom Riccio, who was with Simpson that weekend, according to ABC News. ‘OJ said, “Look, Tom, this isn’t memorabilia. It’s personal artifacts that were stolen from me. My football that I held in my arm when I rushed 2,000 yards, the ring from my wife who died, which I had to give to my daughter.” He kept talking about a photo signed by J. Edgar Hoover, where J. Edgar Hoover said he was a big fan, a fine young man.’

In 1995, OJ was the star player in the ‘trial of the century’ that gripped the world as he and his famous defense attorney, Robert Kardashian, fought against the accusations and the evidence that he had committed murders.

After being acquitted, Simpson was found civilly liable for the murders and was later forced to pay $33.5 million in restitution to the victims’ families – part of the money came from items seized from Simpson’s home.

At the time of the robbery, Simpson devised a plan to get the items back, namely his Heisman Trophy, his wife Nicole’s wedding ring and the football from one of his game-winning plays.

Ricco, who knew of another dealer who had a collection of Simpson’s sports memorabilia from when he played for the Buffalo Bills, then told Alfred Beardsley that he had an interested buyer.

Beardsley got Fromong involved in the potential deal, and the pair moved the items to the hotel room as requested by Ricco.

The day before the robbery, Simpson, still blissfully unaware of his impending arrest and imprisonment, acted as best man to his friend Thomas Scotto at Little White Chapel.

After a rehearsal dinner for his friend’s wedding, Simpson and five other thieves entered the venue around 7:38 p.m.

There he confronted Beardsley and Fromong and told them no one was allowed to leave.

Instead, Simpson showed up at the meeting with other men, and they all had guns. In footage of the robbery afterwards, Simpson was heard shouting: ‘You think you can steal my s**t?’

After his arrest in 2007, Simpson admitted to stealing items originally taken from him, but denied ever breaking into Fromong’s hotel room.

As he did so, his accomplices snagged his memorabilia, autographed Pete Rose baseballs and Joe Montana lithographs.

Simpson’s partners in crime were also caught when Walter Alexander, who brought a gun to the heist, was sentenced to probation.

Clarence Stewart, another accomplice, was sentenced to 15 years in prison but was released after he made a deal.

Ryan Braun and Charles Enrlich were both sentenced to probation, while the fifth robber, Michael McClinton, who also brought a gun and filmed the entire robbery, also received probation.

Simpson was found guilty of the robbery and received the harshest sentence – 33 years in prison.

Ten years after the robbery, Fromong said he had long since forgiven Simpson for what he did.

“It’s just too bad we didn’t talk it out,” Fromong, then 63, said after the news that Simpson would be paroled later that year.

‘If he just said in the hotel room ‘Everybody out… me and Bruce need to talk’ none of this would have happened.’

In agreeing to release him, parole commissioners cited his lack of prior convictions, the low risk he would commit another crime, his community support and his release plans.

Before the hearing ended, Fromong said the former football great never pointed a gun at him during the confrontation, adding that it was one of the men with him who did.

The memorabilia dealer said his ‘friend of almost 27 years’ deserved to be released, adding: ‘He’s a good man. He made a mistake.’

Fromong suffered a series of heart attacks in the days following the robbery, resulting in brain damage, and has since faced bankruptcy and lost ‘everything’.

“I could have died that night,” he previously told The Sunday Mirror.

‘They only had to pull the trigger and I would have been dead. Just two days after the robbery, I had a serious heart attack. It was one of four that I would endure. I flattened twice.’

Fromong said that when a man pointed a gun directly at him during the robbery, but Simpson told him to ‘put the gun down.’

Fromong has since forgiven Simpson, calling him a ‘good man’ and a ‘close friend’.

During the more than hour-long parole, Simpson vehemently insisted — as he has all along — that he was only trying to retrieve items that belonged to him and never intended to harm anyone.

He said he never pointed a gun at anyone or made any threats during the crime.

‘I’ve done my time. I’ve done it as well and respectfully as I think anyone can,” said inmate number 1027820.

A collection of photos later showed Simpson drinking in nightclubs with his ex-boyfriend and her friend just hours after the crime.

Photographs from the occasion showed ‘the Juice’ as he is affectionately known to friends’ celebrating with champagne in the back of a limousine and holding the bride’s bouquet.

Simpson’s death at age 76 was announced Thursday. An X post his family shared on his official account said: ‘On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer.

‘He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you respect their wishes for privacy and grace. – The Simpsons.’

Goldman’s father said Simpson’s death only serves as a reminder of the pain his family has suffered over the years.

“All I have to say today is that this is a further reminder of the loss of my son Ron,” Fred Goldman told DailyMail.com.

‘It is a further reminder of my son’s murder and a reminder of the many years we have missed Ron.’

Simpson, a former football player who played 11 seasons mostly with the Buffalo Bills, reinvented himself as an actor before Brown and Goldman’s murders.