Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights
Clarence "C.J." Stewart, convicted thief and O.J. Simpson co-defendant, has cut a plea deal with prosecutors in Clark County, Nevada that will free him from prison after his 2008 conviction.
How long do you think it will be before we hear from Simpson's attorneys looking for a deal to free the disgraced football legend?
Stewart was convicted in 2008 of helping Simpson in a ridiculous attempt to get back his own sports memorabilia from sports dealers which Simpson said had been stolen from him.
The episode which played out in a Las Vegas hotel room was so comical, with Simpson and friends bearing weapons and hurling movie-line threats against the sports agents, it seemed like it might have been an outtake from on of Simpson's "Naked Gun" movies.
But in the end, it was the hotel room incident, not his deep involvement in the murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman a decade earlier, that ultimately sent one of the greatest running backs in NFL history behind bars.
The Nevada Supreme Court threw out Stewart's conviction in October saying he didn't get a fair trial because he was tried alongside Simpson. He served 27 months of the 7 and one-half year to 27-year prison term.
Simpson is facing a 33-year prison term and might be serving a significant portion of it before he gets any freedom.
A spokesman for the prosecutors' office said Simpson was offered a plea deal to serve a little more than 2 years in prison during the trial. He turned it down, gambling he would be found not guilty.
"He rolled the dice in Las Vegas and lost," said Clark County D.A. David Roger.
Simpson dodged a bullet when he was found not guilty of the Brown Simpson/Goldman murders in 1994 despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
If O.J. were smart, he would have kept his nose clean, stayed out of trouble and avoided silly gun play in Las Vegas hotel rooms. Then he would have been able to live out his life playing golf and trading on his fame as a slightly sullied but attention-grabbing grandfather.
Can you imagine the money O.J. would command in the new reality show-driven world of television today?
Instead, the 63-year old is behind a prison cell. And it looks like he will be there for a while.