There’s a settlement in the defamation lawsuit filed against Dr. Phil by a witness in O.J. Simpson’s robbery case.

Attorneys for Phil McGraw and memorabilia dealer Thomas Riccio filed a statement Monday, saying an agreement had been reached.

Riccio sued McGraw and Stage 29 Media Productions in October. He claimed an interview with McGraw was edited to remove his denials to certain accusations, including that he set Simpson up and told Simpson to bring guns to a Las Vegas robbery.

A judge gutted the case last month, removing defamation, false light and infliction of emotional distress claims.

The interview aired days after Simpson was convicted of robbing and kidnapping two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint.

 

O.J. Simpson has been largely separated from other inmates for his own protection as he sits in a 6-by-9 cell while awaiting transfer to a Nevada prison.

“You don’t know who might take a pot shot at Mr. Simpson,” said Suzanne Pardee, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Corrections, who stressed the separation is routine procedure for all new inmates.

Simpson, 61, sentenced Friday to at least nine years for armed robbery and kidnapping, is currently at the medium-security High Desert State Prison, 40 minutes north of Las Vegas.

The ex-football star is undergoing three weeks of medical and psychological testing to determine which of the seven Nevada prisons he’ll be permanently placed.

For now, Simpson gets a desolate view of a parched landscape through a tiny slit of a window, and is allowed only one hour of recreation per day in an outdoor yard. He gets two hot meals a day, and one in a sack, Pardee said.

Simpson’s only connection to the outside world is through his attorney; no one else outside the facility is permitted to have contact with him during the intake process.

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O.J. Simpson was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday for armed robbery, conspiracy to kidnap and assault with a deadly weapon.

The sentencing comes 13 years after he was acquitted in the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it,” a choked up Simpson, 61, told a Las Vegas, Nevada judge before his sentencing. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody and I didn’t mean to steal from anybody.”

The judge, Jackie Glass, said Simpson’s actions could have caused “a very violent event.

“Guns were brought. The potential for harm to occur in that room were tremendous,” she said.

Simpson will be eligible for parole after six years.

Glass stressed that she was sentencing Simpson solely for the robbery case in Las Vegas, and not for any of his past actions.

“I’m not here to sentence Mr. Simpson for what happened previously,” she said. “I’m not here to try and cause any retribution or any payback for anything else.”

Simpson was found guilty on all 12 counts, including armed robbery and kidnapping, on Oct. 3 – 13 years to the day after his murder acquittal.

Along with an accomplice Clarence Stewart (who was also sentenced to 15 years), the former football player led memorabilia dealers Bruce L. Fromong and Alfred Beardsley to believe a prospective buyer was coming to their casino hotel room to browse sports memorabilia in September 2007.

Instead, Simpson and his co-horts rushed into the room with guns, stuffed the memorabilia into pillowcases and fled.

The incident was recorded on camera, and it was later given to media outlets.

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Patrick McDonald, a Las Vegas criminal defense attorney not involved with O.J. Simpson’s latest case, spoke to PEOPLE about the ex-gridiron star’s legal options following his conviction Friday night.

Can Simpson’s attorneys delay his Dec. 5 sentencing?
Yes, his attorneys can ask Judge Jackie Glass for a new trial. But this is extremely difficult to win. They’ll have to provide newly uncovered evidence, prove there was serious juror misconduct or offer any other surprise revelations that Simpson did not get a fair trial. If they have a convincing argument, Judge Glass could set new hearings for witnesses to be heard, thus delaying Simpson’s [scheduled Dec. 5] sentencing.

If the case moves in that direction, could Simpson be temporarily freed from jail?
The judge could grant him bail, but that’s unlikely due to the severity of his possible sentence. Simpson’s attorneys would have to prove he’s not a flight risk or a danger to the community, and would have to convince the court that he’d show up for hearings.

How good an argument do Simpson’s attorneys have for a new trial based on the impression that the case seemed filled with questionable witnesses?
You generally cannot win a new trial based on the witnesses’ credibility – that was for the jury to decide.

What about appealing the conviction?
That’s different from the above. An appeal can only be requested after a person is sentenced. And it would have to be submitted to the Nevada State Supreme Court no later than 30 days after he’s sentenced. An appeal is also extremely difficult to win.

So what’s the likelihood of Simpson’s actually doing hard time?
If he doesn’t win a new trial or an appeal, at the very least he’s looking at six years in a state prison facility, and at worst, life behind bars.

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A jury convicted O. J. Simpson of armed robbery, kidnapping and all 10 other counts stemming from a confrontation last year in a Las Vegas hotel room.

The verdict, which was read late Friday after 13 hours of deliberations, came 13 years to the day after Mr. Simpson was acquitted in the highly publicized murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald L. Goldman.

Mr. Simpson gave a heavy sigh as the verdict was announced but showed little emotion as officers led him handcuffed from the courtroom. Mr. Simpson’s sister, Carmelita Durio, broke into sobs as he was led away and later fainted.

Mr. Simpson’s lawyer said the conviction would be appealed. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 5, and Mr. Simpson, 61, and his co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, 54, could spend the rest of their lives in prison. Kidnapping is punishable by five years to life, and the armed robbery conviction requires a mandatory sentence of at least two years and up to 30 years. The presence of a weapon at the scene adds years to the minimum sentences for 9 of the 12 charges, which include conspiracy to commit robbery, burglary, assault and coercion.

“He’s extremely upset, extremely emotional,” Yale Galanter, Mr. Simpson’s lawyer, told reporters after the verdict. “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.”

Defense lawyers said they worried from the start about what one described as the “spillover effect” from Mr. Simpson’s controversial acquittal in 1995.

“I don’t like to use the word payback,” Mr. Galanter said. “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.”

Mr. Simpson was facing charges after an incident on Sept. 13, 2007, in a room at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino in which he and five other men departed with hundreds of items of sports memorabilia.

The items were in the possession of two memorabilia dealers, Bruce L. Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, who were led to believe that a prospective buyer was coming to inspect the goods.

Instead, Mr. Simpson and his group burst into the room and, according to several witnesses, at least one in the group was brandishing a gun.

The jury of nine women and three men considered weeks of testimony as well as hours of surreptitious audio recordings of the planning and execution of the event by Thomas Riccio, a memorabilia auctioneer who arranged the confrontation. Mr. Simpson, who could be heard on the recordings, did not testify.

Mr. Simpson has said he was seeking to retrieve only personal keepsakes like ceremonial footballs from his Hall of Fame N.F.L. career and photographs of his family that years ago were taken from his home.

Among the 24 prosecution witnesses were four of the men who prosecutors said accompanied Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart into the hotel room. The four accepted plea bargains from prosecutors in exchange for their testimony, and two of them, Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton, testified that they had carried guns during the confrontation. Mr. McClinton said he was armed at Mr. Simpson’s request.

The proceedings failed to capture the intense public interest that turned Mr. Simpson’s 1995 trial into the so-called trial of the century. That spectacle became a racial touchstone and turned a number of legal analysts into television stars.

While Mr. Simpson’s earlier acquittal was never discussed during the trial, it hung over the proceedings. Jurors were quizzed extensively before their selection about their views of the divisive 1995 trial, and references were made in some of the audio recordings to the fact that Mr. Simpson owes the estate of Ms. Simpson and Mr. Goldman $33.5 million because in 1997 he was held liable in a civil lawsuit for the deaths.

Mr. Galanter attacked that issue in his closing, pointing out that Mr. Riccio’s recorder picked up police officers at the crime scene seeming to exult in their chance to prosecute Mr. Simpson. He also noted that Mr. Riccio alone testified that he had made more than $200,000 in fees from the news media in exchange for interviews and rights to his recordings.

“This case has never been about a search for the true facts,” Mr. Galanter said. “This case has taken on a life of its own because Mr. Simpson’s involved. You know that, I know that, every cooperator, every person with a gun, 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.”

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If O.J. Simpson hasn’t been hitting Miami’s South Beach club scene recently, it’s not because he’s approaching retirement age. Rather, the shamed great says he’s afraid of getting busted with pocketfuls of illicit substances. In a never-before-seen interview shot in 2002 by producer Norman Pardo at the now-shuttered Club XL in Trenton, O.J., 61, tells of his disgust with all the samples forced upon him by would-be drug dealers. “You can’t go to the bathrooms in [South Beach] clubs without somebody saying, ‘Juice, you want a hit?’ You always get people handing you something. It might be a line of coke with a phone number [in case] you want more,” said Simpson, who goes on trial today in Las Vegas on kidnapping and armed-robbery charges.

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Cops rushed to the Florida home of O.J. Simpson after his eldest daughter knocked him to the ground in a brawl over his girlfriend Christie Prody, sources said.

“Arnelle had a fight with Christie (photo below) over Christie’s behavior. That’s what started the whole thing,” a source told the Daily News.

“Christie has some problems with drinking, and Arnelle got mad. O.J. said ‘Don’t talk to her like that,’ and Arnelle pushed him.”

The source said Arnelle, 39, called 911 in a fit of guilt after she toppled the 61-year-old on Sunday, giving him a minor head injury.

The police report does not mention O.J.’s fall, but the National Enquirer, which first reported the row, quoted a source saying O.J. was “cut on the back of his head, blood was coming out the side of his mouth and his lip was cut.”

The Enquirer said Arnelle was furious with O.J. for dishing out money to Prody, 32, while his high school sweetheart – Arnelle’s mom, Marguerite Whitley – has to work at WalMart to make ends meet.

Arnelle also lashed out at OJ for “ditching” Whitley to marry Nicole Brown Simpson, the Enquirer reported. O.J. was acquitted of Nicole’s murder in 1995. Two years later, a civil jury found him “responsible” for the killing.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” the source said of Sunday’s scuffle. “He wasn’t all cut up.”

The police report says the altercation ended when Arnelle agreed to leave O.J.’s house “in order to let things calm down.”

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IT looks like there could be “killer” ratings in store for TV’s “The Celebrity Apprentice” if OJ Simpson gets his way. Page Six has learned the creepy double-murder acquittee has asked Donald Trump to allow him to appear on the top-rated NBC show next season. “Simpson really wants to do it. Trump and NBC are thinking about it, but are being very cautious,” our source said. “There’s a certain amount of heat associated with Simpson.”



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