10 felony charges against O.J. filed

LAS VEGAS — Prosecutors filed formal charges Tuesday against O.J. Simpson, alleging the fallen football star committed 10 felonies, including kidnapping, in the armed robbery of sports memorabilia collectors in a casino-hotel room.

Simpson was arrested Sunday after a collector reported a group of armed men charged into his hotel room and took several items Simpson claimed belonged to him.

Simpson, 60, was booked on five felony counts, including suspicion of assault and robbery with a deadly weapon. District Attorney David Roger filed those charges and added five other felony charges, including kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to court documents.

Simpson, accused along with three other men, faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted in the robbery at the Palace Station casino. He was being held without bail and was scheduled to be arraigned today.

According to the charges, Simpson and the others went to the hotel room under the pretext of brokering a deal with Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong, two longtime collectors of Simpson memorabilia.

Once in the room, Simpson prevented one of the collectors from calling 911 on his cell phone "by ripping it out of Fromong's hand" while one or more accomplices pointed or displayed a handgun.

The complaint does not specify which of the men involved was carrying the weapon.

The kidnapping charge accuses the men of detaining each of the men "against his will, and without his consent, for the purpose of committing a robbery."

Fromong, a crucial witness in the case, was in critical condition in a Los Angeles hospital on Tuesday, after suffering a heart attack Monday, according to a spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Beardsley has said he does not want to pursue the case.

Simpson's lawyer, Yale Galanter, said he planned to ask for Simpson's release on his own recognizance.

"If it was anyone other than O.J. Simpson, he would have been released by now," Galanter said.

Simpson has insisted that he was not armed and that he went to the hotel simply to retrieve property that had been stolen from him.

"You can't rob something that is yours," Galanter said. "O.J. said, 'You've got stolen property. Either you return it or I call the police."'

Witnesses and authorities have said that they don't believe Simpson had a gun but that some of the men who accompanied him during the confrontation were armed.