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Simpson faces 10 felony charges in Las Vegas

A key witness in the case suffers a heart attack.

ADVERTISEMENT [AP photo] O.J. Simpson clenches his fists in victory after the jury acquitted him in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in Oct. 1995.

LAS VEGAS - Prosecutors filed formal charges Tuesday against O.J. Simpson, saying the fallen football star committed 10 felonies, including kidnapping, in the alleged armed robbery of sports memorabilia collectors in a casino hotel room.

Simpson was arrested Sunday after a collector reported a group of armed men charged into his hotel room at the Palace Station casino on Thursday and took several items Simpson said belonged to him.

Simpson, 60, was booked on five felony counts, including suspicion of assault and robbery with a deadly weapon. District Attorney David Roger filed those charges and added five other felonies, including kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, court documents show.

Simpson, accused along with three other men, faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted. He was being held without bail and was to be arraigned today.

Simpson was acquitted more than a decade ago of the 1994 killings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and a friend of hers, Ronald Goldman. He was later found liable in a wrongful-death trial.

According to the Las Vegas charges, Simpson and the others went to the hotel room under the pretext of brokering a deal with Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong, two longtime collectors of Simpson memorabilia.

Once in the room, Simpson prevented one of the collectors from calling 911 on his cell phone "by ripping it out of Fromong's hand" while one or more accomplices pointed or displayed a handgun, the complaint said.

Fromong, a crucial witness in the case, was in critical condition in a Los Angeles hospital on Tuesday, after suffering a heart attack Monday, according to a spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Beardsley has said he does not want to pursue the case.

Simpson has said he was not armed and he went to the hotel simply to retrieve property that had been stolen from him.

Two others named in the complaint, Walter Alexander, 46, and Clarence Stewart, 53, have been arrested and released on bail. A fourth suspect, Michael McClinton, 49, of Las Vegas, surrendered to police Tuesday. Police describe him as "a key player" in the suspected theft. Police were seeking two more suspects, who had not been identified.

[Last modified September 19, 2007, 01:27:44]