US: THE FATHER of Ronald Goldman, the man who was killed alongside Nicole Brown Simpson in Los Angeles in 1994, has praised the guilty verdict which could see OJ Simpson jailed for life on robbery and kidnapping charges, writes Denis Staunton
"We're absolutely thrilled to see the potential that he could serve the rest of his life in jail where the scumbag belongs," said Fred Goldman.
A Las Vegas jury convicted Simpson on Friday of armed robbery and kidnapping for storming a hotel room with five other men to seize sports memorabilia he claimed had been stolen from him.
Thirteen years to the day after Simpson (61) was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife and her friend Mr Goldman, the jury found him guilty of 12 charges of armed robbery, conspiracy to kidnap and assault with a deadly weapon.
The armed robbery charges carry a mandatory jail sentence and the kidnapping charge carries a possible term of life imprisonment.
After 13 hours of deliberation, the jury concluded that Simpson had kidnapped two sports memorabilia dealers and held them in a Las Vegas hotel room in September 2007. Simpson had heard that the men were selling memorabilia related to his career as a football star that he claimed they had stolen from him.
Simpson's lawyer, Yale Galanter, claimed that the trial was unfair because the jury was out to correct what it perceived as his client's wrongful acquittal for murder 13 years ago.
"This was just payback. They were on an agenda," Mr Galanter said.
Thomas Scotto, a close friend of Simpson's, who testified during the trial, described the verdict as "a lynching from the first second to the end".
Simpson's murder trial divided the US and became racially charged after one of the key detectives who built the case was revealed to have habitually used racist epithets. Many critics claimed that Simpson had escaped conviction because of his celebrity status as one of America's best-known sportsmen and his ability to hire an expensive team of star lawyers to plead before a predominantly black jury.
Two years after Simpson's acquittal, Goldman's family won a civil suit against him for unlawful killing, claiming more than $33 million in damages, a sum Simpson said he could not pay.
Two years ago, Simpson wrote a book called If I Did It, which he described as a fictional account of the murders, had he actually committed them. The book was withdrawn by the publishers after a public outcry over the prospect of Simpson profiting financially from the murders.
Simpson's lawyers have said they will appeal the verdict, arguing that the jury, which included no African-Americans, had not been properly vetted.
Howard Varinsky, the consultant who drafted a questionnaire for the prosecution to cull 12 jurors and six alternates from a pool of 500, acknowledged that the composition of the jury had been crucial to the trial's outcome.
"That was the best possible jury prosecutors could ever have," he said. I was surprised that we got all the counts."
As the former football star was handcuffed and led away, his sister broke down and collapsed.