2008 Woodie Awards
If I Did It...O.J. strikes again
Jose Alvarez
Issue date: 9/25/07 Section: Opinion
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He, with a group of men, broke into a room at the Palace Casino in Las Vegas on September 14.
Though Simpson denies it, a gun was allegedly on one of the robbers, and Simpson was booked on several charges, including six felonies. He is, at best, an accomplice in this case, but the media has put the spotlight on Simpson for the mere fact that he's a celebrity.
Following his 1995 acquittal of the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and another man, Ronald Goldman, Simpson (probably 10 years too late) also wrote a book, If I Did It, in 2006. One can only guess the point behind the whole idea of writing a book 11 years after the murder case he wrote about has been closed.
However, by putting it into print form, he shows that he wants an eternity of fame because the written word carries on for millennia. Simpson is probably doing it for the attention in order to carry out another 15 minutes of fame, just like the robbery case.
After nine months in a courtroom, most people do not want to be anywhere near one again; Simpson purposely risked it, though this time he only spent a few hours in court.
He claimed he broke into the casino to take back his memorabilia, but he was not alone. Simpson had several people to help him out, some who are also being charged with felonies along with Simpson himself.
The details may be fuzzy to the untrained eye on whether he did it for the stuff, but bringing other people into the fiasco makes it appear that he did it for the attention and that his accomplices wanted a piece of it.
Now, on the other hand, Simpson isn't really as bad a person as the media says he is; he's just made a few mistakes like the rest of us. In his glory days, Simpson was a Heisman Trophy winner and an NFL Hall of Famer. One day, however, the pro football accolades passed and he was forgotten. Simpson doesn't want to be forgotten.
He escaped conviction for double murder, he wrote a controversial book, and now he's on trial for armed robbery. To keep his 15 minutes of fame alive, he needs to keep up controversy, since the good old media likes to report on that more than other issues.
Simpson is probably going to escape jail time, given his track record, but who really knows?
After all, maybe he "did it" this time. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, not even for celebrities.