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Pam Bondi just saying ‘no’ to O.J. Simpson’s return to Florida

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O.J. Simpson won’t return to Florida if Pam Bondi has any sway over his homecoming.

The state’s Republican attorney general sent a 2-1/2 page letter to Corrections Secretary Julie Jones on Friday, saying she objected to Simpson’s return on behalf of the state. He previously lived in Kendall, Miami-Dade County.

Simpson’s lawyer also Friday said the former football star and celebrity criminal defendant will live in Florida following his parole from a Nevada prison where he’s been held the past nine years after a robbery conviction. He’d been sentenced to 33 years.

Bondi mentioned an interstate agreement that allows states to deny relocation permission to parolees from other states. A Department of Corrections spokeswoman said the agency has not received a transfer request or documents about Simpson, who’s eligible for release Sunday.

Bondi quoted Simpson as saying, “I could easily stay in Nevada but I don’t think you guys want me here.”

“In light of Mr. Simpson’s history in California, Nevada and Florida … the same goes for the people of Florida,” Bondi told Jones. mentioning the “added dangers that his relocation would pose to our citizens.”

Should Simpson be allowed to come back, Bondi asked that he wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, report to his parole officer in person and not by mail, be regularly tested for alcohol and drugs, and have his travel “substantially restricted.”

Simpson won parole in July. He was convicted in 2008 on armed robbery, kidnapping and other charges.

The conviction came after a botched effort to retrieve items that Simpson insisted were stolen after his acquittal in the 1994 killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.

Simpson was found liable for their deaths in a civil case in 1997 and ordered to pay the victims’ families $33.5 million.

A Goldman family attorney said the judgment amount has nearly doubled with interest over the years to more than $65 million, and he continues to seek payment.

“Floridians are well aware of Mr. Simpson’s background, his wanton disregard for the lives of others, and of his scofflaw attitude with respect to the heinous acts for which he has been found civilly liable,” Bondi wrote. “The specter of his residing in comfort in Florida should not be an option … Our state should not become a country club for this convicted criminal.”

The Associated Press contributed to this post, republished with permission.

Before joining Florida Politics, journalist and attorney James Rosica was state government reporter for The Tampa Tribune. He attended journalism school in Washington, D.C., working at dailies and weekly papers in Philadelphia after graduation. Rosica joined the Tallahassee Democrat in 1997, later moving to the courts beat, where he reported on the 2000 presidential recount. In 2005, Rosica left journalism to attend law school in Philadelphia, afterwards working part time for a public-interest law firm. Returning to writing, he covered three legislative sessions in Tallahassee for The Associated Press, before joining the Tribune’s re-opened Tallahassee bureau in 2013. He can be reached at [email protected]

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