LAS VEGAS – O.J. Simpson poses a flight risk and shouldn't be allowed out of prison while the Nevada Supreme Court decides whether to overturn his conviction in an armed hotel room heist, a prosecutor said Friday.
"Criminal defendants are rarely, if ever, released from prison pending the appeal process," Clark County District Attorney David Roger said in a statement after filing documents late Thursday opposing bail.
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"Mr. Simpson is a convicted criminal who does not deserve preferential treatment," Roger said.
Simpson, 61, is serving nine to 33 years for kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon in the gunpoint robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007. He is at Lovelock Correctional Center, 90 miles northeast of Reno.
A lawyer for the former football player, actor and celebrity criminal defendant said Friday that if Simpson is allowed out on bail, he will "absolutely make every court appearance that's expected of him."
"O.J. surrendered his passport," attorney Malcolm LaVergne said. "He's not going anywhere."
Simpson's lawyers appealed his conviction and sentence May 26, and two days later filed a request to let him post bail. No date has been set for a ruling on either matter.
Roger urged the state high court, Nevada's only appellate court, to keep Simpson locked up, citing the length of his sentence and his admission in 2008 that he violated a court order by trying to contact a co-defendant before trial.
Roger's filing also referred to allegations that Simpson gave his NFL Hall of Fame ring to Alfred Beardsley, one of the robbery victims, to influence the memorabilia dealer's testimony.
Beardsley testified before a California judge in December that he did not have the ring and denied an investigator's account that he received it in return for changing his testimony.
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