Las Vegas, Nevada - Former American football star OJ Simpson was arrested Sunday by Las Vegas police in connection with an alleged armed robbery in a casino hotel room. He was booked on suspicion of two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of burglary with a firearm and conspiracy to commit burglary. The most serious counts carry maximum sentences of up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
The alleged robbery involved sports memorabilia taken by force Thursday from a room at the Palace Station Casino. In interviews since news of the incident, Simpson has alleged that he was reclaiming property that had previously been stolen from him.
Simpson, 60, had been questioned Friday by police, who said at the time that he was cooperating. He was taken into custody Sunday without incident and immediately invoked his right to a lawyer and right against self-incrimination, Las Vegas police said.
Television footage showed Simpson being walked by plain-clothed officers into the Clark County jail with his hands cuffed behind his back, wearing denim bluejeans and a blue polo shirt.
The alleged victims, two sports memorabilia dealers, had reported a robbery at gunpoint involving Simpson and three other men. Since the Thursday incident, both men have given conflicting accounts and may have recanted at least part of their allegations, according to media reports.
Simpson's double-murder trial over the 1994 stabbings of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman became a worldwide spectacle. Despite extensive genetic evidence against him, Simpson was acquitted in 1995 in the criminal trial but later held found financial liable for their deaths in a lawsuit two years later.
The murder case, in which most Americans believe he should have been found guilty, ended Simpson's careers as a football commentator, Hollywood actor and corporate pitchman. Since then, he is believed to have supported himself by selling both signed memorabilia and personal possessions, even including the suit that he wore in court for the jury's acquittal.
Simpson's arrest was the second in the Las Vegas case.
Earlier Saturday, Walter Alexander, 46, was arrested on suspicion of robbery with a deadly weapon, assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy and burglary with use of deadly weapon, police said. He was later freed after promising to appear in court.
Simpson faces armed robbery and other weapons-related charges because the other men with whom he entered the hotel room allegedly carried and brandished firearms.
"We don't have any information that would lead us to believe he was armed," Lieutenant Clint Nichols of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Sunday.
Handguns were pointed during the incident but none of the victims were "roughed up," Nichols said.
He said that Alexander, three other named suspects and a fifth, unidentified man who may have been involved had unspecified "social relationships" with Simpson.
The items allegedly stolen in the robbery were "a lot of sports memorabilia - most of it had been signed by Mr Simpson himself," Nichols said.
