LAS VEGAS - Officials at a remote Nevada prison where O.J. Simpson was set free early Sunday after nine years for armed robbery arranged the former football and Hollywood star's dead-of-night departure to avoid public scrutiny.
It worked. Simpson signed release paperwork just before midnight and disappeared into the darkness minutes into the first day he was eligible for release. Through efforts by prison officials to keep the time and place secret, there were no journalists outside the prison gates to capture the moment.
Though publicity-prone in the past, Simpson apparently took the advice of people in his inner circle that he avoid the spotlight. He was neither heard from nor seen publicly, except when a person made a video recording of him in a car at a gas station on the way to Las Vegas in which he asked to be left alone.
State Division of Parole and Probation Capt. Shawn Arruti told The Associated Press that the former football hero and celebrity criminal defendant plans to live at a home in the Las Vegas area for the foreseeable future. Arruti declined for what he said were security and privacy reasons to disclose the exact location of the house.
Simpson was released at 12:08 a.m. PDT from Lovelock Correctional Center in northern Nevada, state prisons spokeswoman Brooke Keast told AP. She said she didn't know the name of the driver who met him and took him to an undisclosed location.
Keast recorded and released a brief video on social media in which Simpson is told to "come on out" and he responds "OK" after walking through an open door and toward a parking lot bordered by desert scrub brush.
The prisons spokeswoman also took photographs showing Simpson - in blue jeans, denim jacket, eyeglasses, ball cap and white sneakers - signing documents about 10 minutes before midnight. He later left the prison with four or five boxes of possessions in the car. Keast said she had no information about where he was going.
Tom Scotto, a Simpson friend who lives in Naples, Florida, said by text message an hour after the release that he was with Simpson. But Scotto did not answer texts asking where they were going or whether members of Simpson's family were with them.
Along with Simpson's sister and oldest daughter, Scotto had attended the July parole hearing at the same prison where Simpson went after his conviction for a botched 2007 heist at a Las Vegas hotel room - prison time he avoided after his 1995 acquittal in the killings of his ex-wife and her friend.
The 70-year-old Simpson said at the hearing that he wanted to move back to Florida, where he lived for nearly a decade before he was sent to prison in 2008. That return did not appear imminent.
Arruti said the only Simpson living arrangement received, investigated and approved was in the Las Vegas area. The parole official said Simpson doesn't have permission to leave Nevada.
Florida's Corrections Department "has not received any transfer paperwork from Nevada" about Simpson that would be required for him to live in that state and be monitored there, spokeswoman Ashley Cook said Sunday.
Though Florida's attorney general has urged corrections officials to object to Simpson's return, the department previously has said it would be required to accept a transfer if it met certain criteria.
"We understand we may have to take him, if he was a model prisoner. And two of his children live here, so that's his hook for coming to Florida," state Attorney General Pam Bondi said. "If we have to accept him, I certainly want conditions placed on him."
Simpson's attorney, Malcolm LaVergne, and state Parole and Probation Capt. Shawn Arruti, who has been handling Simpson's case, did not respond Sunday to messages seeking comment about Simpson's whereabouts.
Las Vegas is a 720-kilometre drive south of Lovelock, and the person who made the video reported finding Simpson at a gas station. Simpson declined to be interviewed, saying he had done nothing since his release but sit in a car for five hours.
Simpson says on the video that he has been doing nothing for nine years. "Nothing has changed in my life," he said.
LaVergne said recently that Simpson looked forward to reuniting with his family, eating steak and seafood and returning to Florida. Simpson also planned to get an iPhone and get reacquainted with technology in its infancy when he began his sentence, his attorney said.paper
Both LaVergne and Scotto said in recent interviews with the AP that they thought Simpson should stay out of public view and focus on family and friends.
Keast said the overnight release from the prison about 145 kilometres east of Reno, Nevada, was conducted to avoid media attention. No media were near the front gate at the time when Simpson's car left the prison by a back road and entered nearby Interstate 80, she said.
"We needed to do this to ensure public safety and to avoid any possible incident," Keast said.
She acknowledged Nevada prison officials misled the media with word about the timing and location of Simpson's release. They had advised it would be no earlier than Monday and possibly in Las Vegas.
Simpson faces restrictions during five years of parole supervision, which could be reduced for good behaviour. He cannot use illegal drugs and can drink alcohol only if the amount he drinks is below Nevada's blood-alcohol limit for driving. He also is prohibited from associating with felons or anyone who Nevada officials prohibit him contacting. And he must tell the state where he'll be living and when he changes his residence. The conditions still apply if Simpson ends up out of state.
Simpson bought his home near Miami five years after his acquittal and raised two of his children, Justin and Sydney, there away from the limelight. He lost the home to foreclosure in 2012.
It's all a new chapter for the one-time pop culture phenomenon whose fame was once again on display when the major TV networks carried his parole hearing live.
He told officials that leading a group of five men into the hotel room confrontation was an error in judgment he would not repeat.
Simpson told the parole board that he led a "conflict-free life," an assertion that angered many who believe he got away with killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles in 1994. He was acquitted the following year in what was dubbed the "trial of the century."
In a statement released through a family spokesman, Goldman's parents said they respected the Nevada Parole Board's decision to release Simpson, but that it was "still difficult for us knowing he will be a free man again."
Fred and Kim Goldman said they will continue to pursue payment of a $33.5 million judgment awarded in 1997 after Simpson was found civilly liable for the deaths. They also said they'll keep advocating for domestic violence awareness, victim advocacy and judicial reform.
Simpson is still obligated to pay the judgment, which now amounts to about $65 million, said David Cook, a Goldman family lawyer.
On Sept. 16, 2007, Simpson led five men he barely knew into a cramped room at the Palace Station casino in Las Vegas in an effort to retrieve items that Simpson insisted were stolen after his acquittal in the 1994 slayings.
Two of the men with Simpson in Las Vegas carried handguns, although Simpson still insists he never knew anyone was armed. He says he only wanted to retrieve personal items, mementoes and family photos from two sports memorabilia dealers.
His conviction in October 2008 in Las Vegas came 13 years to the day after his acquittal in October 1995 in Los Angeles. His lawyers called his stiff 9-to-33-year sentence for armed robbery, kidnapping and other charges unfair. Many other people characterized it as payback for his acquittal in the Los Angeles murder case.
Pritchard contributed from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Ian Mader in Miami contributed to this report.
