You would think that after getting away with the murder of his former wife in the most important case of the 90's O. J. Simpson would have learned his lesson. Instead of avoiding jail and enjoying his get out of jail free pass, he ends up doing something stupid again and this time he's getting the jail time that he deserves. Don't let him of easy. He decided to rob a hotel and this time he is not getting away with it. He looks at 9 years in jail and possibly as much as 33.

A broken O.J. Simpson was sentenced Friday to at least nine years in prison and as many as 33 years for a hotel armed robbery after a judge rejected his apology and said, "It was much more than stupidity."

The 61-year-old football Hall of Famer stood shackled and stone-faced when Judge Jackie Glass quickly rattled off his punishment soon after he made a rambling, five-minute plea for leniency, choking back tears as he told her: "I didn't want to steal anything from anyone. ... I'm sorry, sorry."

Simpson said he was simply trying to retrieve sports memorabilia and other mementos, including his first wife's wedding ring, from two dealers when he stormed a Las Vegas hotel room on Sept. 13, 2007.

But the judge emphasized that it was a violent confrontation in which at least one gun was drawn, and she said someone could have been killed. She said the evidence was overwhelming, with the planning, the confrontation itself and the aftermath all recorded on audio or videotape.

Glass, a no-nonsense judge known for her tough sentences, imposed such a complex series of consecutive and concurrent sentences that even many attorneys watching the case were confused as to how much time Simpson got.

Simpson could serve up to 33 years but could be eligible for parole after nine years, according to Elana Roberto, the judge's clerk.

The judge said several times that her sentence in the Las Vegas case had nothing to do with Simpson's 1994 acquittal in the slaying of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

"I'm not here to try and cause any retribution or any payback for anything else," Glass said. Simpson was immediately led away to prison after the judge refused to permit him to go free on bail while he appeals. Simpson's co-defendant and former golfing buddy, Clarence "C.J." Stewart, also was sentenced to at least 15 years.

Outside court, Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, and sister, Kim, said they were delighted with the sentence. "We are thrilled, and it's a bittersweet moment," Fred Goldman said. "It was satisfying seeing him in shackles like he belongs." The Goldmans took a measure of credit for Simpson's fate, saying their relentless pursuit of his assets to satisfy a $33.5 million wrongful-death judgment "pushed him over the edge" and led him to commit the robbery to recover some of his sports memorabilia. Simpson and Stewart were both brought to the courtroom in dark blue jail uniforms, their hands shackled to their waists with chains.

Simpson, who looked weary and had not been expected to speak, delivered a somber statement to the judge. As he spoke in a hoarse voice, the courtroom was hushed. His two sisters, Shirley Baker and Carmelita Durio, sat in the front row of the courtroom, along with his adult daughter. Both men were convicted Oct. 3 of 12 criminal charges, including kidnapping and armed robbery. "As stupid and as ill-conceived as it was, it wasn't something that was from this evil mind they teach us about," Simpson attorney Yale Galanter said before sentencing. "Not bright, not smart, not well thought out, but certainly not from an evil mind," Galanter said.

Most of the 63 seats in the courtroom were taken by media, lawyers and family members of the defendants. Fifteen members of the public were also allowed. After sentencing was over, the Goldmans left the courtroom and Kim threw her arms around her father and wept. Simpson's sisters declined to comment, but Shirley Baker said on her way out: "It's not over." Jurors who heard 13 days of testimony said after the verdict that they were convinced of Simpson's guilt because of audio recordings that were secretly made of the Sept. 13, 2007, robbery at the Palace Station casino hotel.

The confrontation involved sports memorabilia brokers Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong. It was recorded by collectibles dealer Thomas Riccio, who was acting as middleman. "Don't let nobody out of this room!" Simpson commands on the recordings, and instructs other men to scoop up items he insists had been stolen from him.

On Tuesday, Glass is scheduled to sentence four former co-defendants who took plea deals and testified against Simpson and Stewart. Michael McClinton, Charles Cashmore, Walter Alexander and Charles Ehrlich could receive probation or prison time. McClinton could get up to 11 years; the others face less.

Portion from Associated Press

NEW YORK, Dec 02, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Sports Illustrated Group Editor Terry McDonell announced today that Michael Phelps is the 2008 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. Phelps is SI's 55th Sportsman of the Year and joins Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, among other athletic greats who have received this award.

The SI Sportsman of the Year is presented annually to the person or team who transcended the year in both athletic performance and character. The descriptor, "It is not for the victory alone that he is honored. Rather, it is for the quality of his effort and the manner of his striving," lifted from the pages of SI in 1957, represents the defining principle of the award.

"Michael Phelps as the 2008 Sportsman of the Year was the easiest choice I have made," McDonell said. "Look at what he did in Beijing last summer. I was there. I saw him race after race, win again and again - we all saw that. And then to know him now -- it is so obvious that he changed not only swimming, but also the entire Olympic landscape."

Two thousand eight was a year of powerful moments in sports. The New York Giants' dramatic Super Bowl win, Tiger Woods' U.S. Open playoff victory on one leg, the Nadal/Federer Wimbledon final and a last-second shot in the NCAA men's basketball championship, but it was Phelps' unprecedented eight-gold- medal, seven-world-record achievement in Beijing under the intense spotlight of a global audience that rises above all.

Phelps will be honored at a ceremony in Manhattan this evening along with Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver -- the first recipient of the Sportsman of the Year Legacy Award -- and SI Kids' SportsKid of the Year, Derek Andrews.

"It is for elevating his sport -- and all of us out of our seats -- with a beguiling grace and humility that SI honors Phelps with its 55th Sportsman of the Year Award," writes Alan Shipnuck in his profile of Phelps. The magazine hits newsstands on Wednesday and marks Phelps's sixth appearance on the cover of SI.

In Beijing Phelps delivered a performance for the ages in breaking Mark Spitz's 36-year-old mark of seven gold medals in a single Olympiad. Phelps won individual gold in the 400-meter individual medley, 200-meter freestyle, 200- meter butterfly, 200-meter individual medley and 100-meter butterfly to go along with team golds in the 4x100-meter freestyle, 4x200-meter freestyle and 4x100-meter medley relays. His 0.01-second victory over Serbia's Milorad Cavic in the 100-meter butterfly and his U.S. team's come-from-behind triumph over France in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay provided two of the most iconic moments of the 2008 Summer Games.

Other athletes named Sportsman on the strength of their Olympic performance include Bobby Joe Morrow ('56), U.S. Olympic hockey team ('80), Edwin Moses and Mary Lou Retton ('84), Bonnie Blair and Johann Olav Koss ('94).

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