O.J. Simpson could soon go free depending on the outcome of this week's Nevada Parole Board hearing. The State of Nevada has been besieged by media requests to cover the hearing taking place Thursday.
Simpson has served nine years of a 33-year sentence for charges related to robbing and kidnapping two sports memorabilia collectors in 2007. He has already been paroled on the robbery charges and on Thursday will make his case for parole on charges of assault with a deadly weapon.
Brooke Keast is with the Nevada Department of Corrections. She says about 20 news organizations have been given credentials to be present at the Nevada Parole Board hearing in Carson City and 130 miles away at Lovelock State Prison, where Simpson is being held.
"How much interest we've received is off the charts. We have 120 people coming to the parking lot of Lovelock Correctional Center to see nothing."
She says the influx of people into one of its parking lots presents an unusual challenge.
"We have the option. I mean, we may have to search vehicles or things like that. I mean, it is a prison after all."
Keast says the hearing will be broadcast online.
"We have to make this public. So, to do that, we are live streaming it because, normally, it's just not this kind of attention for a regular parole hearing."
Simpson will be given the opportunity to speak via closed-circuit television.
The parole board considers each case using a points system.
He could be released Oct. 1.
Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, were stabbed to death in 1994. After hiding in a white Ford Bronco during a slow-speed police chase, Simpson was taken into custody and charged with the murders. He was found not guilty in criminal court, but legally responsible for their deaths in a civil trial.
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