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After 4 1/2 years behind bars, battling weight gain and depression, O.J. Simpson is hopeful freedom is just around the corner.
In a series of exclusive jailhouse conversations, including a 30-minute video chat last week, an upbeat Juice told a Post source he was cautiously optimistic and ready to start a new life on the outside.
In a move sure to infuriate the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, whom Simpson was acquitted of killing after a spectacular trial, that new life will include a planned college speaking tour to earn money.
The tour will address both the murder case and the 2008 conviction for kidnapping and armed robbery of a sports-memorabilia dealer, a decision Simpson blames on racism.
“I feel like I’m back in the ’50s — a black man in a white justice system,” he said of the Nevada jury. “I looked into their eyes and I knew they would convict me.”
Last week, the NFL Hall-of-Famer and onetime actor held up his shackles during a video phone call from the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas. “I don’t like this vibe. I feel like I’m back on ‘Roots’!” he told The Post source.
As early as tomorrow, Judge Linda Marie Bell could overturn Simpson’s conviction for attacking a memorabilia dealer and order a retrial, or even set him free with credit for time already served.
“I like Judge Bell. She’s not trying to be a movie star,” Simpson said, in a dig at Judge Jackie Glass, who sentenced him to up to 33 years in prison after his 2008 trial and then went on to host the syndicated TV show “Swift Justice.”
“She [Bell] is straightforward business, so I feel I’ll get a fair shake.”
Life behind bars
Friends say that since being tossed into Lovelock Correctional Center near Reno, Simpson, now 65, has turned to anger management, religious texts, fantasy football and two “odd couple” cellmates to deal with despair, racial tensions and tabloid rumors.
He fumed at the storm surrounding the memoir, “If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer,” which sparked a huge uproar in 2006, prompting publisher Regan Books to ax the project before publication.
“I didn’t write that damn book. I was just paid not to dispute it,” Simpson told The Post source.
During the first two months of his incarceration, inmate No. 1027820 was segregated from other prisoners as a safety precaution.
“That period really depressed O.J.,” attorney Craig Brand, who visited Lovelock on several occasions — and will represent Simpson going forward — told The Post.
“He was shell-shocked and went through all the classic grieving stages.”
When Simpson was moved to an 80-square-foot cell in the general population, things didn’t get much better.
In April 2009, his younger sister, Carmelita, died, leaving him distraught about being unable to attend her funeral.
Equally disturbing was his bigoted bunkmate.
“The guy’s a white supremacist,” Simpson’s daughter, Arnelle, griped to a Post spy at the time.
But within months, the former NFL superstar had turned things around, becoming pals with his bunky.
Their relationship hit a high note after the cellmate began poring over legal documents from Simpson’s 2008 case — alerting the double-murder acquitee to trial errors that could be the key to gaining his freedom.
“It was the white supremacist who first pointed out to O.J. that Yale Galanter had done him wrong,” Simpson’s longtime promoter, Norman Pardo, told The Post.
Galanter was fired by Simpson last year after representing him for 12 years.
Among the allegations in last week’s hearing are that the attorney’s incompetence and conflicts of interest made it impossible for Simpson to get a fair shake in his 2008 trial.
Girth is
‘all muscle’
Meanwhile, Simpson has been stewing about last week’s media reports mocking his girth.
“I gained weight eating all those beans, but just because I can’t get enough fruits and vegetables,” he said. “My family’s been bugging me to stop with the beans.”
Those beans would be the baked variety — with pork — and Simpson buys them canned at the commissary at Lovelock.
His bean binge is part of a bodybuilding regimen in which he loads up on the protein- and carb-rich dish and works out vigorously to convert fat into muscle.
“If you ask O.J., he’ll tell you it’s all muscle,” said the source.
“Look at his arms — they’re ripped.”
One of the bright spots of Simpson’s early days in prison was a TV in his cell, which is anything but standard-issue.
His friends and relatives took up a collection to buy him one at the commissary.
He’s been able to follow his former football teams, the USC Trojans and the Buffalo Bills, along with such professional wrestling fare as “WWE Superstars.”
Simpson’s TV would also help further the affection of fellow inmates.
In February, he held a Super Bowl bash in his cell and a slew of them crammed in to catch the game.
“He’s like the Godfather of the prison,” said Pardo.
He’s also taken on the role of coach on Lovelock’s recreational baseball team.
To help find spiritual strength, Simpson prays every night like his late mother, Eunice — whose photos were among the artifacts he was out to retrieve during the Vegas heist — taught him.
“O.J. got into the Bible as well,” Brand said. “He’s looking for answers.”
Answers beyond those found in Christianity, added Pardo: “O.J.’s also been reading the Koran. Certain parts fit him better than Bible teachings.”
Back in the game
Simpson has grown closer to his four children.
He calls Arnele and Jason, his children with Marguerite Whitley, and Sidney and Justin, his kids with Nicole Brown, at least once a week, and they visit him as well.
Simpson’s main concern is that they’re able to live normal lives.
“I want to keep them out of this circus, so I’m happy they’re not here,” he told the source.
“I don’t want them being attacked by the media.”
Pardo and wife Jill Mitchell have also remained supportive of Simpson, mailing him at least 300 pages of fantasy-football stats from various Web sites every season.
“I’m a fantasy-football fanatic,” Simpson told Pardo. To the point of obsession.
Last year, after Mitchell mailed him photos of wildlife on the couple’s Clarkston, Mich., estate, Simpson called and said, “If anyone wants to send me anything, send fantasy-football magazines!”
As soon as he gets his printouts, fellow inmates gather around him in the yard hoping to scrounge players for their own rosters.
They bet small prison rewards such as food.
“But O.J. is by far best in the league,” said Pardo. “He knows a number of the pros personally and watches as many of the games as he can on TV.”
Pardo — who promoted him at a series of hip-hop events from 2001 through 2005 — could be a key to Simpson’s future as a free man.
“O.J. will join me on tour, though this time only to college campuses,” said Pardo, whose multimedia presentation lays out “the other side of the story” about Nicole Brown Simpson and Rob Goldman’s 1994 slayings in Brentwood, Calif.
“I’m excited,” O.J., who first addressed college students at Oxford University in 1996, told the source. “It’ll be a good opportunity for kids to hear about my case firsthand.
“I mean, they teach the ‘Trial of the Century’ in school, so who better to talk about it than me?”
Simpson could rake in upwards of $1,000 per appearance, said Pardo.
In preparation for the “O.J. Simpson Road Show,” Pardo recently bought a $105,000 luxury bus to roll onto campuses throughout the East Coast, starting with Fairmont State University in West Virginia.
Simpson told the source that before embarking on a tour, he’d settle in at a friend’s condo in Miami Beach — and change his eating habits radically.
“I’m going on a fruit-and-vegetable diet,” he said.
“But I also want a big ol’ ribeye steak. And a glass of Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.”