KEY POINTS:
Former sports star OJ Simpson wakes up this morning in the very place where most Americans think he should have spent the past 13 years: behind bars.
Simpson's long descent from public hero to national disgrace took a sudden downward turn on Friday, when a jury in Las Vegas found him guilty of 12 charges, including kidnapping and armed robbery, related to an incident in a local hotel room last September.
Simpson exhaled deeply, blew out his cheeks and nodded as the unanimous verdict was read out in a small upstairs room at the city's Regional Justice Centre.
He was denied bail before being handcuffed and taken into custody for what could end up being the rest of his life.
Sentencing was scheduled for 5 December.
As Simpson, who wore a dark suit with a white shirt and grey tie, was led out of the room, his sister, Carmelita Durio, broke down in tears. A friend, Tom Scotto said, "I love you, man," as Simpson passed.
After spectators began leaving the courtroom, Mrs Durio collapsed.
The jury of nine men and three women, of whom 10 were white and two Hispanic, decided after 13 continuous hours of deliberations that both Simpson and his co-defendant, Clarence "CJ" Stewart, had kidnapped two sports memorabilia dealers and held them hostage at the Palace Station hotel and casino on 13 September last year.
They were accused of leading a gang of six men to the room in the early hours of the morning to retrieve a selection of American footballs, trophies and signed photos. Prosecutors said two of the men were armed.
One accomplice testified that Simpson asked him to bring a gun and look "menacing".
The rest of America has greeted the verdict with a mixture of indifference and relief.
To many, the outcome of the four-week trial represents a case of proxy justice for Simpson's alleged role in the frenzied 1994 murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
The following year the former American football star, who had later become a prominent celebrity and Hollywood actor, was sensationally acquitted of the double killing in what subsequently became known as the "trial of the century".
However, he was later found liable for the couple's deaths in a civil case and forced to declare himself bankrupt and retire to Florida, where state law protected his $20,000-a-month pension from being seized by creditors.
Simpson's failure to shake off his enduring notoriety, which has not been helped by a string of court cases he has appeared in over the past decade, has left many wondering if he is capable of receiving fair treatment from a US jury.
"I don't like to use the word payback," his attorney, Yale Galanter, said outside the Las Vegas court following the verdict.
"I can tell you from the beginning my biggest concern ... was whether or not the jury would be able to separate their very strong feelings about Mr Simpson and judge him fairly and honestly."
Asked about the welfare of his client, who is planning to appeal the conviction, Mr Galanter added: "He's extremely upset, and extremely emotional. We knew this was going to be very difficult, we knew the jury was going to be very difficult, we knew the jurisdiction would be very difficult."
More than 500 potential jurors were screened to select 12 men and women suitable to serve on Simpson's Las Vegas jury.
Unlike the panel who acquitted him in 1995, most of whom were middle-aged black women - the demographic thought to be most sympathetic to Simpson's plight - this group was predominately white.
Several members of the jury even admitted during the selection process that they already regarded Simpson as a double murderer, but promised not to let that belief interfere with their treatment of the evidence against the defendant.
Despite protests from the defence, they were selected to serve.
Elements of the prosecution case have sparked renewed debate about celebrity justice. It relied on secret tape recordings of the hotel room encounter made by some of the mostly dubious characters who were there, and who subsequently sold them to the media for six-figure sums.
Simpson's attorneys questioned both the veracity of the recordings and the motivation of the former accomplices who later testified against him n who had all struck a plea bargain with prosecutors which saw them spared a jail term, providing they co-operated with efforts to convict him.
Many of the key witnesses are now able to sell their story, while at least one of the Nevada policemen behind Simpson's arrest boasted of wanting to succeed where his rival officers in California failed, by putting him behind bars.
"This case has never been about a search for true facts," Mr Galanter said. "Every co-operator, 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 - was only interested in one thing: Mr Simpson. He's always been the target of this investigation, and nothing else mattered."
From the beginning, Simpson argued that the incident was not a robbery but an attempt to reclaim items that the memorabilia dealers, Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, had stolen from him.
He insisted that he never asked anyone to bring a weapon to the Palace Station, and was unaware that there were guns involved.
The "stolen" memorabilia, he claimed, had been earmarked to help finance his children's college education.
However, his case was always at odds with the law, which says it is a crime to take something by force, regardless of whom it actually belongs to.
It was also compromised by the existence of the recording, which appeared to show him orchestrating a violent stick-up.
Simpson, who did not testify, was heard screaming that the dealers had stolen his property.
He announced: "Don't let nobody out of this room!" before ordering his accomplices to collect the various items of memorabilia.
Most members of the media circus who attended the four-week trial - more than 500 journalists received credentials to cover the case - expected Simpson to be found guilty of some of the 12 charges against him.
However, many commentators are surprised that the allegation of kidnapping stuck.
At best, Fromong and Beardsley were confined to their room for little more than a few minutes. But the prosecutor, David Roger, successfully argued: "When they went into that room and forced the victims to the far side of the room, pulling out guns and yelling, 'Don't let anybody out of here!', six very large people detaining these two victims in the room with the intent to take property through force or violence from them, that's kidnapping."
The kidnapping conviction is significant, because the crime is punishable by a minimum of five years and a maximum of life in prison.
Armed robbery carries a mandatory sentence of at least two years behind bars. Combined with the tariffs for the 10 other charges he was found guilty of, Simpson, now 62, knows he can expect to spend the rest of his days in prison.
- INDEPENDENT
