Most believe he murdered his ex-wife and her friend in 1994, and got away with it, but will the former football and film star's luck hold out in his latest legal battle, asks Sean O'Driscoll.
At Roasters 'n' Toasters deli in Miami, the mood is sombre. The deli's star customer, OJ Simpson, was indicted on kidnapping and robbery charges after allegedly forcing sport memorabilia traders to hand over $100,000 in goods he says he rightfully owns.
"You would not find a nicer man; always polite, always willing to talk," said Roasters' co-owner and chef, Pedro Rosado.
Simpson does much of his morning socialising in Roasters, where he brings his two children when they are back from college.
Customers drop over to say hello and have their photo taken, Simpson often launching into a spiel about how today's American football stars are just too soft.
"He says that players don't care about the game, they just care about the money," says Rosado. "He says many times that players used to go out there with broken fingers and a broken arm but the guys today won't play if they have a headache."
But does Simpson leave a tip? Rosado is almost offended by the question. "A tip? Yes! OJ always leaves a tip. The staff love him. Everyone loves this man."
"Everyone" is clearly a relative term - opinion polls show the American public strongly believes he murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in June 1994.
That hasn't stopped OJ from living a full life in Florida, renowned for its legal protection of the morally ambiguous.
There is scarcely a bar or restaurant in the lively Coconut Grove area of Miami that does not have a story about OJ's exploits - how he is always with beautiful women or poses with tourists or gives lengthy, unsolicited commentary to sports fans.
Patrice Yursik, originally from Trinidad, lives in the same "suburban, unfashionable" Kendall neighbourhood as OJ but rarely sees him except in the nightlife part of Miami, "always with some skinny white women or other".
"The man is 60 years old, and he lives his life in a cloud of self-created infamy," she says.
OJ's sociability is effusive to the point of being intrusive, as Philadelphia postgraduate student, Mark Anskis discovered when he and his father got locked into a three-hour conversation with Simpson on the day that Martha Stewart was convicted of insider trading.
The Anskises were visiting a bar in the Coco Walk shopping mall when they heard a man shouting at the TV screen. "Bill O'Reilly just said he can't believe I'm free and Martha Stewart is going to jail."
"I thought, 'Who the hell is that jerk?'," said Anskis. He turned around to find OJ talking to the barman. "It was clear from the way he was talking about Martha Stewart's trial that he was arrogant about getting away with what he did. He had no remorse and he was proud of it."
Nevertheless, Anskis enjoyed his company.
"He was one of the most outgoing people you could ever meet. He loved talking to people," says Anskis. "But after about two and a half hours, we were wondering how to get out of there because my mother was waiting. He invited us over to his house later but we never went. It was getting kind of weird. We just wanted to go home."
AS A MANwho, in an alternate universe, might be serving a double life sentence for murder, Simpson repeatedly says that he wants to live every moment to the full. Financial records obtained by the Goldman family show that he collects $20,000 (€14,400) a month from his National Football League pension, which cannot be seized by the Goldmans under Florida's generous litigation shield laws.
The same goes for Simpson's $1.5 million swimming-pool-bedecked Kendall home, which he occasionally shares with his on-again, off-again twenty-something girlfriend, Christine Prody. In all, since the Brown and Goldman families won a $33.5 million lawsuit against Simpson in 1997, they have managed to collect just $10,000.
That may be about to change with the publication of OJ's tell-all book about his motives and methods for killing Nicole and Ron - if he was the one who murdered them. (And he's not officially saying that he was.)
After the publication of the book blew up in the face of Rupert Murdoch's publishing wing, Ron Goldman's father, Fred, won court approval to take all proceeds on behalf of the Goldman family. (The Browns have distanced themselves amid a split between the victims' families.) With control of publication, Goldman changed the title from If I Did Itto If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, and turned over publication to a small New York publisher named Eric Kampmann, better-known for his self-published book of Biblical quotes than for celebrity murder confessions.
THE BOOK HASshot to the top of bestseller lists since its release last week and it's already going into a second print. Despite OJ's very public vow that the victims' families would never get a penny, Fred Goldman's relentless pursuit of OJ's assets may finally be about to pay dramatic dividends.
"Fred is a very sincere and motivated man. He made a pledge to see this through," says Kampmann, who took questions from The Irish Timesbetween calls from bookshops looking for new shipments. "Fred never imagined his life would take this course. Everything changed when that 'not guilty' verdict came down. He is never going to let OJ free until he has paid for what he did."
Despite Goldman's pursuit, Simpson is still making money any way he can. Lightning appearances at sports memorabilia events have became a regular occurrence. He was ejected from a sports memorabilia convention in Chicago in 2005 after arriving unannounced and signing autographs at $100 apiece.
It is a small example of the wild, impetuous side of OJ that first broke the rules of American football (smashing all records by running more than 2,000 yards in the 1973 season). That wildness later led him to the criminal courts on a double murder charge.
Since his lawyers hurried him down to Florida to protect his assets, OJ's unpredictability has seen courts issuing an arrest warrant for driving his boat at speed into a manatee breeding zone and a court order to pay over $50,000 (€36,000) to a TV cable company for a childish scheme to pirate cable decoding boxes.
HE WAS ALSOacquitted in a road rage trial in which he was accused of grabbing a $300 pair of sunglasses from the president of an export company and scratching the man's face.
By his own admission, OJ also attacked a man on a Florida golf course for calling him a "murderer" and an "asshole". It was the second insult that got to him, he explained later; the "murderer" accusations he has come to accept.
After an astounding sequence of good luck since June 1994, OJ may finally be facing real prison time with the latest accusations of armed robbery of the two sports memorabilia traders.
The kidnapping charge carries a possible life sentence, but luck is yet again beginning to turn in his favour. One of the traders was rushed to hospital with a heart attack on Monday. The other doesn't want to testify.
"He will get off because people like him," says the ever-loyal Pedro Rosado. "OJ is a nice person. Why is it so hard for you people in the media to accept that?"
The Simpson File
Who is he?OJ Simpson, American football legend, known around the world for his sensational acquittal of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman
Why is he in the news?Alleged armed robbery and kidnap of two sports memorabilia collectors in Las Vegas
Most appealing characteristic: Talkative and affable to strangers, tourists, people looking the other way, old ladies waiting for the bus, telemarketers, anyone willing to listen . . .
Least appealing characteristic: Describing how he would have killed his wife and crassly cashing in on it
Most likely to say: "I have this plan that, at first, may sound crazy . . ."
Least likely to say: "Sure, it'll make money, but isn't it a little tasteless?"