O.J. jury: We didn’t trust witnesses

Las Vegas, Oct. 6: Jurors who convicted O.J. Simpson of armed robbery and kidnapping said that they did not trust witness testimony and instead relied on recordings and other documented evidence to convict the former football star.

It might have been a waste for prosecutors to give plea deals to several Simpson co-defendants in exchange for their testimony, since the jury did not rely on it, foreman Paul Connelly said.

Seven members of the 12-person jury agreed to the extraordinary news conference two nights after the verdict was announced because they said they were being hounded by reporters.

They answered questions for an hour in the same courtroom where Simpson and Clarence "C J" Stewart were convicted of robbing two memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a hotel room.

The jury listened repeatedly to recordings made by collectibles dealer Thomas Riccio, the host of the hotel confrontation, who was granted immunity, and felt they heard things that had not been fully transcribed by the police, juror Michelle Lyons said on Sunday.

But jurors could not trust the credibility of witnesses who were given plea deals, Ms Lyons said.

"We felt we could not rely on that witness testimony," she said. Simpson, 61, was famously acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Simpson is in a state of "shock" over his conviction. "I can’t believe I'm in here for this nothing incident," he said, and termed his incarceration a conspiracy.

—AP, ANI