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OJ Simpson's Release From Nevada Prison May Be Delayed

The former football star and actor wants to transfer to Florida after his release, but the Florida Department of Corrections has yet to receive a transfer request for O.J. Simpson, officials said

O.J. Simpson will be eligible for parole from prison in Nevada Sunday, but that may be delayed if a required release plan is not completed and approved by then.

When Simpson was found suitable for release in July, he told the parole panel that he intended to move back to Florida, where he had lived after leaving Los Angeles and before his 2007 arrest in Las Vegas. He has served nine years at the remote Lovelock prison, two hours outside of Reno.

The Florida Department of Corrections, however, has yet to receive a transfer request for Simpson, officials said.

Transfer of parole jurisdiction is routinely approved. But under the terms of the governing Interstate Compact, the review process can take up to 45 days.

"Mr. Simpson's obligation to make arrangements, not mine," tweeted his attorney Malcolm LaVergne in response to an inquiry from NBC. "When he advises me of move, I'll inform media."

Under the procedure in Nevada, the inmate collaborates with a case worker to develop the plan for release supervision, which is then sent to a "pre-release specialist," according to Capt. Shawn Arruti of the Nevada Division of Parole and Probation.

Arruti said he is precluded from disclosing where in the process the Simpson case is now. In the general case of an inmate seeking to have parole transferred to another state, the specialist forwards the release plan as part of a formal transfer request to the "receiving state."

Once a star football running back for the USC Trojans, and later the Buffalo Bills, then a TV pitchman and actor, Simpson lived for many years in the affluent Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood.

In the mid 1990s he was jailed 15 months after being arrested on suspicion of committing the stabbing murders of his former wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman.

Simpson was acquitted, but was found liable in a wrongful death civil trial.

Simpson moved to Florida and bought a house on nearly two acres south of Miami, where his two children with the late Nicole Brown lived until adulthood. After his Las Vegas arrest, Simpson lost that property to foreclosure, but the grown children remained in Florida.

Longtime friend Tom Scotto of Naples, Florida, has invited Simpson to stay with him. Reached by phone Monday, Scotto said he believes Simpson wants to stay with him, but is not sure when Simpson will be arriving.

It is possible for Simpson to abandon his request to serve parole out of state, at least for the initial period after he leaves prison. But even so, before any inmate can be released to live in Nevada, a release plan would have to be prepared and approved, Arruti said.

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