OJ Simpson Found Guilty of Armed Robbery and Kidnapping

OJ Simpson faces life in jail after being found guilty today of kidnapping and armed robbery in Las Vegas.

A jury of nine women and three men unanimously found Simpson guilty of all 12 charges after more than 13 hours of deliberations, which began 13 years to the day after he was cleared of a double murder.

The former American football star kidnapped two sports memorabilia dealers by holding them in a room at the Palace Station hotel and casino in Las Vegas before stealing items from them on September 13 last year, the Clark county district court in central Las Vegas heard.

His lawyer, Yale Galanter, said Simpson, 61, who lives in Miami, Florida, would appeal against the verdict.

Outside court, Galanter said: "The verdict was not a shock. We knew it going in, there was a lot of baggage."

The former actor and National Football League (NFL) star was cleared of murdering his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in a high-profile trial by a predominantly black jury in Los Angeles in 1995.

The verdict divided America on racial lines and prompted debates over the suitability of televised court cases.

In the latest trial, the deputy district attorney Chris Owens, prosecuting, said Simpson had taken a gang of men to the Palace Station to retrieve items he lost while trying to hide them from Mr Goldman's family and the California court which fined Simpson $33.5m (£18.9m) for wrongful death in a civil case.

Four of the five men who accompanied Simpson to the casino - Charles Cashmore, Walter "Goldie" Alexander, Michael "Spencer" McClinton and Charles Ehrlich - accepted plea deals and agreed to testify for the prosecution.

The fifth, Clarence "CJ" Stewart, 54, was Simpson's golfing friend and co-defendant in the trial.

Galanter told the jury the prosecution had failed to prove his client was guilty and added that the case "has taken on a life of its own because of Simpson's involvement".

"Every cooperator, every person who had a gun, every person who had an ulterior motive, every person who signed a book deal, every person who got paid money - the police, the district attorney's office, is only interested in one thing: Simpson," Galanter said. "He has always been the target of this investigation, and nothing else mattered."

He told the jury that Simpson never intended to commit a robbery but wanted to reclaim personal mementos of his career and family life which were being sold by the dealers Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley.

"Being stupid, and being frustrated, is not being a criminal," he said.

Witnesses told the court Simpson repeatedly declared he had not seen any guns and did not know guns were to be present in the hotel room.

Simpson did not give evidence during the three-week trial, and jurors were instructed not to consider that when judging the case.

Judge Jackie Glass, who rejected several mistrial motions and kept a tight rein on the proceedings, warned the all-white jury against trying to punish Simpson over the death of his former wife.

She told them if they hoped to become famous because of the trial "then this is not the case for you".Before the trial began, one prospective juror was dismissed after she told the court she "felt (Simpson) got away with murder". In 2006, Simpson wrote a book called If I Did It, which set out how he might have murdered his wife, had he been so inclined. The book was withdrawn and pulped by Harper Collins shortly before being published.

In August last year, a Florida bankruptcy court gave the rights to the book to the Goldman family, who published it under the title I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.

The former star and his almost-forgotten co-defendant Stewart were both found guilty of all 12 charges they faced. These were two charges of first degree kidnapping, two of armed robbery, two of assault with a deadly weapon, two of coercion with a deadly weapon, burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit a crime, kidnapping and robbery.