LIVE VIDEO — O.J. Simpson testifies midway through a five-day evidentiary hearing. He's serving nine to 33 years in prison for his conviction on armed robbery, kidnapping and other charges in a 2007 gunpoint confrontation. 
 
 O.J. Simpson, making a long-shot bid for a new trial, testified Wednesday he had no idea that any of his companions were armed when they went to a Las Vegas hotel room to retrieve memorabilia that he claims was stolen from him. 
 
 “I would not have imagined in my wildest dreams that these guys would have guns," Simpson said on the stand during a court hearing that will determine if he gets a new trial. 
 
 Simpson is serving nine to 33 years after being convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping for the 2007 confrontation. Among his claims is that he didn't know a weapon was used and he got bad legal representation at his trial. 
 
 During his first few hours on the stand, the former football star recounted a boozy day with friends at the Palms hotel, where he was staying for a friend's wedding, capped by a chaotic face-off with the memorabilia dealers at the nearby Palace Station. 
 
 He said guns never came up as he and the other men discussed going to the dealers' room to size up the merchandise, that he didn't see anyone pull a gun inside the room, and that his pals later denied a weapon was shown before they left with some items. 
 
 "I was kind of stunned," he said of his mental state after he walked into the crowded hotel room and surprised the sellers, who thought they were meeting an anonymous buyer. "I was looking at stuff I hadn't seen in 10 years." 
 
 Asked about audiotape on which he is heard saying that the dealers shouldn't be allowed out of the room, Simpson said his intent was legitimate. 
 
 "If they don't want to give [the items] to me, I want them arrested," he said. 
 
 Earlier, Simpson testified that he had been drinking steadily before the clash and was so tired he missed a golf game and wanted to take a nap. 
 
 He said he had been drunk enough the night before that “I wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel of a car.” He then had “a Bloody Mary or two” at a midday breakfast, and kept drinking by the hotel pool, he testified. 
 
 “I had a joke: ‘My doctor says I should never have an empty glass’ is what I would tell the waitress,” he said. 
 
 Simpson, 65, appeared grayer and heavier than he did when he was sent to prison. Wearing jailhouse blues and shackles on his legs, he occasionally chuckled as he calmly answered questions from his appeals team. 
 
 He famously did not take the stand during the sensational 1995 trial at which he was acquitted of killing his ex-wife and her friend. 
 
 He also did not take the stand during the robbery trial five years ago — a decision that will be key in arguments that lawyer Yale Galanter gave him bad advice during the 2008 robbery trial. 
 
 Simpson told the court that he wanted to testify in his own defense and always assumed he would, but Galanter wouldn't commit to that strategy. 
 
 "Late in the trial he said he didn't think I should testify, that they hadn't proven their case... that there was no way I could be convicted," he said. "I had to trust his judgment on that." 
 
 He said Galanter told him that he "could not be convicted" and squelched suggestions from another lawyer that he take the stand and explain what happened that night. 
 
 Under cross-examination, Simpson agreed that he had been told by the judge that he had the right to testify on his own behalf. 
 
 He also testified that Galanter knew about his plan to got to the Palace Station to see if he could reclaim the memorabilia and that the lawyer said, "You have the right to get your stuff" as long as he wasn't trespassing. 
 
 He told Galanter that if he found a suit he wore during the 1995 trial, he planned to "burn it," and the attorney insisted that he bring it to him instead. 
 
 Simpson said he wanted to reclaim the memorabilia — including items that vanished after his murder trial — because it belonged to his children and his family, “not some guy selling at a hotel room in Vegas.” 
 
 The mementos, he said, included commemorative footballs, old pictures with presidents and a picture of himself with former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, “before we heard about J. Edgar Hoover and the tutus and stuff.” 
 
 Galanter is expected to testify during the hearing, which is schedule to continue through the week. 
 
 If Simpson doesn’t prevail at this proceeding, which legal experts say is a long shot, he must serve five more years in prison before he is eligible for parole. 
 
 This story was originally published on ||||| Imprisoned O.J. Simpson is “sweating” that his July 20 parole hearing will be an unprecedented media circus, and that officials could deny his release because of the press scrutiny. 
 
 The former football star, 70, has served more than eight years of a nine-to-33 year sentence in a Nevada jail after he was found guilty in 2008 of armed robbery, kidnapping and other charges stemming from a confrontation with memorabilia dealers at a Las Vegas casino. 
 
 The hearing will be held before a panel of four parole commissioners sitting in Carson City, Nev. 
 
 The Juice will be beamed in via video conference from Lovelock Correctional Center, where he has been serving his stretch. If granted parole, he could be released on Oct. 1. 
 
 But unlike his first parole hearing in 2013, where there was no pre-hype or press permitted, this time arrangements are being made for a media circus at both locations. 
 
 Jeffrey Felix, a former Lovelock prison guard who describes it as a “cruise ship with barbed wire” and himself as O.J.’s “prison BFF,” self-published a book titled “Guarding the Juice” and still talks to sources inside with O.J. 
 
 He told Page Six, “The Juice is sweating it over the parole hearing. He’s been told there will be media tents outside, pool reporters in his room and the Carson City hearing room, and cameras sending a live feed to the media outside. He is asking why they are fostering a circuslike environment for his hearing.” 
 
 Felix continued, “O.J. thinks he deserves his parole — he’s been clean for nine years, hasn’t had any write-ups, took all the programs and classes they told him to take — but he thinks all this media hype is going to screw with the parole board and put pressure on them to keep him locked up. The media still portrays him in a negative light because he was acquitted of the murders [of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman].” 
 
 The parole board says it expects to announce its Simpson decision on the same day as the hearing, which we are told “has never happened before.” 
 
 Reps for Nevada’s Department of Corrections and Parole Board didn’t comment. Simpson’s attorney in Vegas, Malcolm LaVergne, didn’t get back to us. ||||| O.J. Simpson is contrite before Nevada parole board, appeals for reduced sentence Jailed former football great O.J. Simpson, 66, begged a parole board panel for leniency Thursday, saying he deeply regrets robbing two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room. 
 
 Former gridiron great O.J. Simpson begged a parole board panel for leniency Thursday, saying he deeply regrets robbing two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room. 
 
 Simpson, 66, has been incarcerated in Lovelock Correction Center since 2008, when he was convicted on multiple felony counts including kidnapping and conspiracy. 
 
 “I just wish I never went to that room,” the ex-NFL star told the two-person panel. 
 
 RELATED: EX-GIRLFRIEND: O.J. WAS 'OBSESSED' WITH NICOLE 
 
 “I wish I just said keep it,” Simpson added. 
 
 Simpson has said he broke into the hotel room in 2007 looking to retrieve items stolen from him after his 1995 “trial of the century” in Los Angeles when he was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her male friend. 
 
 After a trial in which Simpson claims he was the victim of a botched defense by bad lawyers, the football-star-turned-actor was sentenced to up to 33 years. 
 
 RELATED: SIMPSON LAWYER INSTRUMENTAL IN CRIME: WITNESS 
 
 Simpson told the board he’s been a model inmate in Lovelock, about 90 miles east of Reno — even counseling other prisoners convicted of robbery. 
 
 He said he was determined to “do my time as best that I can do.” 
 
 Since he’s been in prison, he’s missed his children and his sister’s funeral, he told the members of the Nevada Parole Board. 
 
 RELATED: O.J. TAKES THE STAND, GETS EMOTIONAL 
 
 Some of Simpson’s sentences on multiple charges were ordered to run concurrently — two counts each of kidnapping and robbery and one count of burglary — so if he’s granted parole it won’t mean an immediate exit. 
 
 “It doesn't open the cell door,” said H. Leon Simon, the prosecutor handling Simpson's appeal. 
 
 “He'd just start serving the consecutive sentences.” 
 
 RELATED: O.J. SIMPSON RETRIAL BID CONTINUES 
 
 Simpson made his plea to a two-person panel who will make a recommendation to the full board. 
 
 A final decision on parole is expected next week. 
 
 During the 15-minute hearing, Simpson, dressed in denim prison garb, was the only one to speak. 
 
 RELATED: O.J. SIMPSON RETURNS TO COURTROOM TO FIGHT FOR FREEDOM 
 
 Simpson’s best chance for freedom lies with a pending decision by a Las Vegas judge on whether to grant him a new trial based on claims that his trial lawyer mishandled his defense and had a conflict of interest in the case. 
 
 Clark County District Judge Linda Marie Bell held a weeklong hearing in May on the issue that featured testimony from Simpson. 
 
 His current lawyers, Patricia Palm and Ozzie Fumo, also presented evidence and questioned witnesses, including trial lawyer Yale Galanter, about whether he knew in advance about the September 2007 plan for Simpson and several other men to confront the memorabilia dealers. 
 
 Bell hasn’t indicated when she plans to issue her decision, but she told a KSNV-TV interviewer this week that she still had “some writing to do.” 
 
 With News Wire Services 
 
 gotis@nydailynews.com
– OJ Simpson's big moment has arrived. A hearing is underway at which he is trying to convince members of the Nevada Board of Parole that he should go free. "I haven't made any excuses in the nine years that I've been here and I'm not trying to make an excuse now," said the 70-year-old Simpson early in the proceedings, per the AP. Later, he added, "I am sorry that things turned out the way they did. I had no intent to commit a crime." He also appeared to stifle a sob in his appeal to the board. Simpson has been imprisoned since 2008 over an armed robbery and kidnapping case, but he and many legal analysts think that the board will vote to release him. If so, he's expected to be out on Oct. 1. The televised hearing is being livestreamed at various sites, including CNN. Per CNN, one of the first questions posed to Simpson by a board member in regard to the robbery, in which he and other men entered a Vegas hotel room to reclaim sports memorabilia, was, "What were you thinking?" Simpson called it a "big mistake" and emphasized that he wasn't armed. "I would never pull a gun on anybody." He insisted that he learned only afterward that one of the men with him, who was "behind me," brandished a gun. Another board member noted that he hadn't taken an alcohol-abuse program as he promised he would at his last hearing. Other Simpson quotes: "I'm at a point in my life where all I want to do is spend as much time with my children." "I've basically spent a conflict-free life." Daughter Arnelle Simpson said her father is "remorseful," and she wants him to come home so they can "move forward," adding, "It's been hard."