"HE MADE A MISTAKE"

Despite previous murder charges against Simpson, commissioners did not challenge his assertion that he had spent a largely conflict-free life and had always been "pretty good to people."

Simpson, known during his football career as the "Juice", said he was ready to spend time with his children and friends and could handle the public attention he would get.

“I’m not a guy that has conflicts in the street, I don’t expect to have any when I leave here” he told the commissioners.

Simpson's adult daughter, Arnelle, told the hearing that his incarceration had been hard on her family.

"No one really knows how much we have been through, this ordeal the last nine years," she said. "He's like my best friend and like my rock."

Bruce Fromong, one of the sports memorabilia dealers Simpson was convicted of robbing, said he had long ago forgiven the man he called a close friend.

"This is a good man. He made mistake. But if he called me tomorrow and said, 'Bruce I'm getting out, will you pick me up?' Juice, I'll be here tomorrow for you."

The second robbery victim was Alfred Beardsley, who according to Simpson’s lawyer made amends with Simpson years before his death in 2015.

Simpson hopes to move to Florida, where he has friends and family, when he is released, a plan that must first be approved by probation authorities there.

"I could easily stay in Nevada, but I don’t think you guys want me here,” Simpson said to laughter during the hearing. The board's chairwoman, Connie Bisbee, replied: "No comment."

The commissioners said they did not take into consideration the notoriety still surrounding Simpson's 1995 acquittal from charges he murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman and a civil court decision that found him liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages.

Simpson will probably be transferred in the final weeks of his incarceration to one of two other Nevada prisons used to accomodate soon-to-be-released inmates because of their proximity to airports and other public transportation, Corrections Department Warden Isidro Baca said.

Reuters