Los Angeles - Former American superstar OJ Simpson was sentenced to 15 years in jail Friday, more than a decade after his sensational and controversial acquittal on charges that he murdered his ex-wife and her friend in 1994. The sentence had the air of a sad but inevitable demise of a man who had once captivated the US media and public, first as an exceptionally-gifted football player, then as a popular actor and advertising icon, and then as the star defendant in what was known as the trial of the century.
From the media cavalcade that followed Simpson's low-speed vehicle chase, to his famous trying on of a glove worn by his wife's murderer and to the way America and the world held its breath when the verdict was announced, Simpson was a central figure in America's late 20th- Century narrative.
Simpson was born in San Francisco in 1947 to a middle class black family and rose to national attention as a star running back in college. He turned professional in 1969. After initial struggles he was breaking records by 1973 when he was named as Player of the Year. In 1985 he was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
Simpson also had a powerful screen presence with parts in TV shows like Roots and movies like The Towering Inferno. His pleasant personality made his a natural salesman and he was a spokesman for the Hertz rental car company among others.
But his gilded public persona masked deep personal problems. His first marriage lasted 13 years and ended in divorce in 1979, the same year that one of his three children died in a swimming pool accident.
He married Nicole Brown in 1985 and they divorced in 1992, three years after Simpson pleaded guilty to a domestic violence charge.
When Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman were found dead in 1994, Simpson was charged with their murders. He assembled a "dream team" of top criminal lawyers and was found not guilty in a controversial jury verdict that was watched live on television by more than half the US population in October 1995, and by Simpson fans around the world in locations remote as northern Kenya.
Two years later a civil jury found Simpson liable in the case and he was ordered to pay over 33 million dollars in damages to the families of Brown and Goldman. However, he managed to maintain a lavish lifestyle as his 22,000-dollar football pension was exempted from the judgment.
Simpson has never publicly admitted guilt for the murders. But his former friend Mike Gilbert claimed that he had confessed to the crime while under the influence of drugs.
He also co-authored supposedly hypothetical book in 2007 entitled If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, in which he outlined how he might have committed the crime.
Members of the Goldman family were in court for the sentencing.
