OJ Simpson goes on trial for robbery

O J Simpson (pictured), the former US football star who was accused and controversially acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, is set to keep America gripped with his latest brush with the law - he went on trial yesterday for robbery and kidnapping.

According to prosecutors, Simpson and a group of gun-toting cohorts stormed into a room at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas a year ago and demanded two sports memorabilia collectors hand over items related to Simpson's career. The spoils are said to include the suit Simpson wore on October 3, 1995, the date of his acquittal for murder, after which a civil jury found him liable for the killings and ordered he pay his victims' families $33.5 million, something he has so far refused to do.

The Las Vegas encounter was taped by a third memorabilia collector who set up the meeting and later sold the audio recording to a celebrity gossip website. Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, as has his co-defendant, Clarence "CJ" Stewart, says he did not know that two of the men with him would be armed and had not seen their weapons. (Continued below)

The other four men who accompanied the pair, including the two who carried weapons, have struck plea deals for reduced sentences in exchange for testifying against Simpson. Legal opinion agrees that it's unusual for such a case to go to trial, but Simpson's fame has turned it into another high-profile media circus.

"Nothing about an OJ case is a normal case because it's OJ," says Laurie Levenson, the former federal prosecutor. "A guy who can get off of a double homicide with DNA evidence is not a normal defendant. There's going to be some pressure to vindicate the judicial system in this case."

Simpson arrived with no fanfare at the Las Vegas courthouse yesterday for the start of jury selection, refusing to answer questions but waving when one person called out "good luck".