O.J.’s guilty.

In the 13 years since O. J. Simpson was acquitted of all charges stemming from the murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, this sentence has been shouted, whispered, printed and televised without ever being true. Now it is.

Ten days ago, a Las Vegas jury convicted Simpson of armed robbery, kidnapping and 10 other counts in relation to his involvement in a confrontation on Sept. 14 of last year in a Las Vegas hotel room.

During said confrontation, Simpson and five other men reportedly burst into a room at the Palace-Station Hotel-Casino and departed with hundreds of items of sports memorabilia, many of which were jerseys and footballs from Simpson’s own Hall of Fame football career.

The items were in the possession of two memorabilia dealers who were led to believe that a prospective buyer was coming to inspect the goods. Two of Simpson’s accomplices, who accepted plea bargains and became witnesses for the prosecution, said they had carried guns at Simpson’s request.

So, what does this all mean?

Well, with sentencing scheduled for Dec. 5, Simpson and his co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, could spend a significant amount of time behind bars. Kidnapping is punishable by five years to life, and the armed robbery conviction requires a mandatory sentence of at least two years and up to 30 years. The presence of a weapon at the scene adds years to the minimum sentences for nine of the 12 charges, which include conspiracy to committed robbery, burglary, assault and coercion.

Keep in mind that Simpson is 61 years old.

Our generation is almost too young now to remember the O.J. Simpson trial and the racial touchstone it became. But surely, you have a vague idea. Perhaps you remember the helicopter footage of Simpson in a White Bronco racing down Interstate 405 in California or the infamous photo of Simpson trying on the leather glove found at the murder site.

We also tend to forget how high-profile Simpson was in 1995. You wouldn’t know it now, but Simpson was at one time considered one of the greatest NFL running backs of all time. He won the Heisman Trophy at the University of Southern California, became the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season with the Buffalo Bills and was a first-ballot inductee to the NFL Hall of Fame in 1985. He also starred in movies (“Naked Gun.” anyone?), was a sports commentator and a successful TV ad personality. Simpson defined celebrity then and thus the tornado of attention when he was accused of double homicide.

Today, however, O.J. defines guilty convict, his image more often depicted in a mug shot than on a trading card.

It is cliché to say fall from grace, but Simpson’s tumultuous decline from all-American role model to jailbird has been nothing less than epic.

Two years ago, Simpson was commissioned to star in a reality TV show called “Juiced” that sounded like a much scarier version of “Punk’d.” Simpson would star as himself and intentionally get into altercations with strangers to the point of physical brutality. Just before swinging he would say, “You’ve been juiced!” and everyone would laugh…or cry…or call the police. The show never aired. Not long after “Juiced,” it was announced that O.J. would write a book entitled, “If I Did It.” No joke. The book was never published.

In the wake of Simpson’s most recent escapade, pundits have reignited the debate about Simpson’s innocence in 1995. In unearthing the past, opinions have varied on the matter. In an interview after the hearing, Yale Galanter, Simpson’s lawyer, likened the Las Vegas guilty decision to payback for his 1995 acquittal.

ESPN columnist Jemele Hill noted in her Oct. 9 column that there is no closure on the larger issue of O.J. Simpson because of questionable jury selection in the Las Vegas case; of the 12 jurors, all were white and five wrote in a selection questionnaire that they disagreed with the 1995 decision—basically they believed Simpson guilty before the trial even started.

Regardless of your stance, there is one apparent end in sight now: legal experts predict Simpson will spend the rest of his life in prison. This may make you happy or furious or even indifferent, but what the courtroom decision essentially did was write the final chapter on the O.J. saga.

A life that began with such promise may end in a jail cell, but it should be remembered as a telling reflection on an athlete, the media and a judicial system that created such a jarring amalgamation of crime and punishment.