Police: O.J. Simpson held in isolation without bail.
September 17, 2007 – Hall of Fame running back and one-time murder defendant O.J. Simpson will be held without bail after his arrest in connection with an alleged sports-memorabilia heist, Las Vegas police said Sunday.
Police released this mug shot of O.J. Simpson after his arrest.
Simpson, 60, will have his first scheduled court appearance Thursday, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said after the former football star’s arrest on robbery, assault, burglary and conspiracy charges.
No explanation accompanied the decision, which was announced in a police statement Sunday night.
Simpson was booked Sunday evening on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of armed burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Capt. James Dillon told reporters.
All the charges carry possible prison terms, with a range of two to 30 years on the robbery counts and one to six on the rest. 
Watch Simpson transferred Sunday in handcuffs »
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A co-defendant, Walter Alexander, faces similar charges in an investigation Dillon said was “still dynamic and still ongoing.”
Simpson was being held in isolation at the Clark County jail because of his status as a high-profile inmate, Dillon said. Simpson would be treated “like anyone else” in the lockup, he said.
Simpson is accused of taking sports memorabilia from two men in a Las Vegas hotel room Thursday. One of the men, Bruce Fromong, described the incident as “a home invasion-type robbery” involving Simpson and several companions, two of whom pointed guns at people in the room.
The other alleged victim, Alfred Beardsley, has been quoted by celebrity Web site TMZ.com as saying that Simpson later apologized to him and told him he regretted the incident.
Simpson has said that he entered the room with a group of friends, one of whom was posing as a potential buyer, after being tipped off that some of his personal items were for sale there. He said his friends helped him carry the items from the room, but said no guns were involved, and that the incident was not a robbery.
But Las Vegas police Lt. Clint Nichols said interviews and searches — including the seizure of two guns during the investigation — undercut Simpson’s story.
“We don’t believe anybody was roughed up, but there were firearms involved in the commission of the robbery,” Nichols said.
Police said they believe Simpson was the ringleader in the incident.
The weapons turned up after Alexander’s arrest Saturday on charges of robbery, conspiracy, assault and burglary. The 46-year-old Mesa, Arizona, man gave police information that led to three search warrants, Dillon said.
“Included in the seizure of that evidence was two firearms, which we believed to be the two firearms which were used in the armed robbery, in addition to property that was reported stolen, along with clothing that was worn by some of the robbery suspects,” he said.
Alexander was released on his own recognizance and returned to Mesa either Saturday night or early Sunday morning, Dillon said.
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Simpson was arrested Sunday in his room at the Palms Hotel, where he was staying to attend a friend’s wedding. The Heisman Trophy winner and former Buffalo Bills star has maintained his innocence and called the incident a misunderstanding.
“The truth will come out,” he told CNN prior to his arrest.
But the charges mean he faces the prospect of another courtroom drama, more than a dozen years after the 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman.
Simpson was acquitted of murder in 1995, after a trial that riveted much of the United States. But in 1997, a jury found him liable for their deaths in a civil case brought by the family of Goldman, who died after going to Nicole Simpson’s Los Angeles home to return a pair of glasses.
Simpson was ordered to pay the Brown and Goldman families a total of $33.5 million for the deaths. Goldman’s sister, Kim Goldman, said she was not surprised by the robbery allegations because Simpson “thinks he can do no wrong.”
“He’s capable of stabbing people to death, so I think robbery is nothing surprising,” she said.
“Normal, logical, civil-minded, law-abiding people don’t storm a room with guns demanding stuff back,” she added.
Fromong had testified on Simpson’s behalf in the civil case, telling the court that prices for Simpson memorabilia had dropped substantially since the 1995 verdict. His testimony was part of the defense’s contention that Simpson could not afford to pay the Goldmans.
Simpson recently wrote a book he was going to call “If I Did It” and had planned to publish it himself, but a public outcry led to the cancellation of his book deal. A bankruptcy judge subsequently awarded the Goldmans the rights to the book in light of their inability to collect the wrongful death award.
The Goldmans retitled the book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer,” and it has just hit bookstores.
In addition, Nichols said, whether the items taken in Thursday’s incident belonged to Simpson “is still in debate.”
Nichols also said that some of the property taken had Simpson’s signature. But “there was some other property taken as well,” he said. “I believe there were some Joe Montana cleats and some signed baseballs and other stuff.”
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