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O.J. Simpson plays the justice system again

O.J. Simpson (
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Whatever happens, O.J. Simpson is the victor. Again.

Like an apparition out of your weirdest nightmares, for five days this month, O.J. was free.

We haven’t seen the ex-football player, actor and the world’s most famous human ever to get off on a double murder rap in 4 1/2 years. That’s when O.J. was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping for a scary, potentially violent, 2007 confrontation with two memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room.

For a week, O.J. commandeered a Vegas courtroom, claiming, again, that he was an innocent victim, this time not only of a racist “system,” but of his own lousy lawyer. A judge could rule any day if O.J. is to be set free.

My, he looks different.

Appearing pudgy and bloated from wolfing down prison commissary junk food, all 270 pounds of the NFL Hall of Famer, affectionately known as “The Juice,’’ 65, sat with his left hand shackled in the courtroom. The convicted felon’s lawyers persuaded Judge Linda Marie Bell to leave his alleged stabbing hand free so O.J. might drink water, take notes and creep out observers not accustomed to seeing O.J. up close and personal after all this time.

O.J. has lived these last years in a cell at Lovelock Correctional Center near Reno, Nev., vowing to find the “real” killer of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her waiter pal, Ronald Goldman. Mainly, O.J. feels sorry for himself.

He raised his arm shackles during a video phone call inside the Clark County Detention Center in Vegas. “I don’t like this vibe,” he declared to the source. “I feel like I’m back on ‘Roots.’ ”

Thus, O.J. renewed the bogus racism theme that guided his successful murder defense in the 1995 “Trial of the Century.” Afterward, disgusted “Dream Team” lawyer Robert Shapiro complained that the team played the race card in the case “from the bottom of the deck.”

During the weeklong hearing, in which O.J.’s alcohol consumption and abject stupidity were the main courses on the menu, he again succeeded in turning the court system on its ear.

He made a somewhat convincing case that his conviction should be overturned, arguing that he’s not some hoodlum, but the recipient of bad legal advice. So even if the judge decides to send him back to prison, O.J. wins a round in the court of public opinion.

O.J. doesn’t deny taking part in the armed robbery and kidnapping that got him sentenced to nine to 33 years.

Taking the witness stand, he blamed his former longtime lawyer, Yale Galanter, for his plight. He said the lawyer failed to make him testify at trial, and told O.J. he wouldn’t be stealing from the memorabilia dealers because they were holding his stuff. Taking the witness stand, Galanter denied saying this.

O.J. also said he didn’t know two of his five accomplices were armed; Galanter insisted he did. O.J. also faulted the lawyer for failing to mention at trial that O.J. was hammered on Jack Daniel’s and Bloody Marys the day he and five accomplices robbed the dealers.

Bad advice isn’t the only thing O.J. blames for his own actions. He blames his new-found girth not on his compulsive appetites, but on prison pork and beans.

“I gained weight eating all those beans, but just because I can’t get enough fruits and vegetables,” he whined, complaining about media snickers.

When he’s cut loose, O.J. says he wants to make money lecturing on college campuses. Good luck with that.

The infuriating part is that, in 2013, O.J. gets another chance to play a judge and the public like well-tuned violins. But, a few things have changed since 1995, when O.J. cynically divided the nation along racial lines to get off on murdering two people, including the mother of two of his children. (In 1997, he was found liable for the deaths in civil court and ordered to pay the Brown and Goldman families $33.5 million. He hasn’t.) “I think his time has come and gone,” said SiriusXM radio host and Tea Party 365 founder David Webb, an African-American and former O.J. fan.

“He was one of the great stories in football. He was not just an athlete, he was a public figure. He was loved.

“Today, there is a much smaller separation between black and white than there used to be. People have moved on. They don’t care.’’

Let’s hope so.

It remains to be seen if O.J. gets out of prison. But one thing is clear: The Juice hasn’t changed.

Has the justice system?

Too busy to parent? The butler will do it

Rich parents aren’t like you and me. They’re too self-absorbed to raise their own kids.

Wealthy New Yorkers are sending household help to their children’s private schools to work fund-raisers and bake sales and to accompany tykes on admissions interviews, infuriating the schools and less fabulous parents.

The ritzy Marymount and Buckley schools warned parents on their Web site to stop sending housekeepers to twice-yearly safety patrol, in which Mom or Dad is expected to walk students to cars and buses, The Post’s Tara Palmeri reported. One slacker mom was incensed at the demands from $40,000-a-year schools.

“These schools are exorbitantly expensive. They hit you up for school fees, donations, and then they want your time? I have three kids at three different schools. If I can send my nanny, I’m happy about it.”

I fear for the next generation of masters of the universe.

You’re looking at what’s wrong

Trying to hang on to power, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (inset) proposed banning payoffs to sexual-harassment accusers.

But it was Silver himself who arranged for $103,080 in taxpayer-paid hush money to silence two women accusing then-Assemblyman Vito Lopez of groping them.

And it was Silver who at least twice before arranged payments to women crying foul — including a $507,500 civil-suit settlement for one accusing Silver’s chief counsel of sexual assault a decade ago.

Yet Gov. Cuomo still won’t try to kick the louse out.

As long as Sheldon Silver’s in charge, the state Legislature will continue to stink to high heaven.

Not always good to share

The city’s dastardly bike-share program begins today. Yet it’s already threatened the well-being of an elderly man.

Workers last week removed a 15-foot chunk of a bike kiosk planted in front of The Cambridge, a Greenwich Village co-op — after The Post told the city Department of Transportation that the Citi Bike racks made it hard for an ambulance to pick up retired physician Edward Liss, 92, who was in distress.

DOT officials, meanwhile, have worked like demons to move or remove racks from at least four other potentially dangerous spots.

Here’s an idea: Take them all out. Don’t wait for a tragedy.

Diss & tell & tell

Is Brad Pitt still obsessed with ex-wife Jennifer Aniston?

The Hollywood A-lister, 49, told Esquire that while married to Jen, he was a drug-damaged burn-out who was “f–king off.’’

He similarly overshared with Parade magazine in 2011, complaining that before he hooked up with present partner Angelina Jolie in 2005, he “wasn’t living an interesting life. I think my marriage [to Aniston] had something to do with it.’’

It’s been eight years since Brad divorced Jen, and life perhaps got a bit too interesting. Some people just can’t move on.