Cheryl Hines is friends with many Hollywood celebrities, but there is one figure with whom she shares a particularly strange connection: OJ Simpson.
The late football star and murder suspect, who died on April 10 at age 76 after a brief battle with cancer, was the subject of endless press coverage following the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994, before Simpson’s trial for allegedly murdering the two, who began their opening statements in January 1995.
While speaking with Mayim Bialik about her Breakdown Podcast On Tuesday, Hines revealed that he had been working at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 1995 during the course of the trial.
The hotel would serve as a place where the trial jury was isolated until the trial concluded in October 1995.
During that time, Hines worked as a bartender and waitress at the Hotel-Intercontinental, which was later renamed the Omni Los Angeles Hotel.
Cheryl Hines is friends with many Hollywood celebrities, but there is one figure with whom she shares a particularly strange connection: OJ Simpson; photographed on April 18 in Hollywood
She revealed Tuesday on Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown podcast that she worked; Simpson photographed at trial on December 8, 1994
Hines was a bartender and waitress at the Hotel-Intercontinental, later renamed the Omni Los Angeles Hotel, where jurors were confined to fifth-floor suites; photographed in 2016
Jury sequestration, which lasted almost a year, pushed many of the jurors to their limits, even though they could at least count on luxury hotel accommodations from their fifth-floor suites.
As part of requirements to prevent them from being unduly influenced by information not presented at trial, jurors were prohibited from watching television, reading newspapers or even making calls from hotel phones, and had a curfew each night, according to news week.
Although jurors were allowed to leave the hotel, they were only allowed if a security guard accompanied them.
Jury selection began in October 1994, and by the following month 12 jurors had been selected, along with an unusually large list of 12 alternate jurors.
It turned out to be a prudent move, as 10 jurors were dismissed during the course of the trial for various reasons, and only four of the original list were still on the jury when it returned its verdict in late 1995.
Hines recalled being ordered to stay away from the sequestered jurors (who she said began to go “crazy” over time) during their stay at the Hotel-Intercontinental.
“I forget what floor they were on, but we weren’t allowed to go to that floor, we weren’t allowed to tell anyone they were there,” he told Bialik.
Despite having to stay away from jurors, he still saw evidence of their desperation as the trial (and his isolation) dragged on.
Hines was not allowed to go to the jury room or talk to them; Pictured with Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm
Simpson was tried in 1994 and 1995 for allegedly murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman; seen with defense lawyer Peter Neufeld
Jurors were not allowed to watch television, read newspapers, or make calls to hotel phones, and required a security guard to leave the hotel; Simpson with (left to right) Robert Blasier, Johnnie Cochran Jr. and Robert Shapiro in 1995
Hines recalled a hotel pianist who performed in the jury room to cheer them up by saying, “They’re going crazy, they’re not going to make it”; She was seen with her husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in January in Los Angeles.
‘One of them carved “help me” on his window and you could see it. I thought, ‘What’s going on on that floor?'” she recalled.
The hotel tried to compensate for the jurors’ unfortunate situation by sending one of its pianists to the fifth-floor suites to serenade them over the ivories, but Hines said the woman felt he was of little comfort to them.
“You’re going crazy, you’re not going to make it,” he remembers the pianist telling him after a musical session.
Hines, who is married to presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., made it clear that she had no contact with the jurors, as she was ordered not to go up to their floor to speak with them.
However, her performance during the months of kidnapping was good enough that her boss decided to reward her with a stay at the same hotel where she worked.
“During that trial, my boss asked me to pack a suitcase and leave it ready by my door, because when they received the news that a verdict was coming, I had to drive directly to the hotel and check in,” he said. “I think it was the first time I stayed in a really nice hotel.”
Simpson was ultimately acquitted by a majority black jury, and polls have shown that a large majority of black Americans at the time believed Simpson was innocent, while a majority of white Americans considered him guilty of his ex’s murder. wife and her friend Goldman.
He was later found responsible for their deaths in a 1997 civil suit brought by Goldman’s father. Simpson was ordered to pay $33.5 million in the verdict.
Simpson was eventually acquitted by the majority-black jury, although he was found responsible for the deaths of Brown and Goldman in a subsequent civil suit; photographed in 1995
Hines revealed that his manager gave him a gift for his good service by allowing him to stay at the luxury hotel as soon as the verdict was given; Pictured with Larry David in 2002.
Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison in 2008 for armed robbery and kidnapping, but was paroled after the minimum nine years in 2017; seen in 2013
In 2007, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas for armed robbery and kidnapping after he and a group of men entered a hotel room and held them at gunpoint while taking sports memorabilia that Simpson said had been stolen from him. stolen.
After all of his accomplices accepted plea deals, he was subsequently convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping and sentenced to 33 years in prison, although he was paroled in 2017 after serving the minimum nine years behind bars. .
Simpson announced in May 2023 that he had been diagnosed with cancer, which in February of this year was reported to be prostate cancer.
He died on April 10 at his home in Las Vegas.