Judge admonishes O.J. Simpson for violating bail

A Las Vegas judge sternly scolded O.J. Simpson and doubled his bail in court Wednesday after the former football star and actor spent the weekend in jail for trying to contact one of the co-defendants in his armed robbery trial.

"I don't know Mr. Simpson what the heck you were thinking — or maybe that's the problem — you weren't," Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass told Simpson.

"I don't know if it's just arrogance. I don't know if it's ignorance. But you've been locked up at the Clark County Detention Center since Friday because of arrogance or ignorance — or both."

Glass doubled Simpson's original bail amount, setting the new bail at $250,000 US.

Simpson was taken into custody in Florida on Friday after prosecutors alleged he tried to contact one of his co-defendants in November and left a profanity laced phone message.

Defence lawyers did not dispute that Simpson left the message.

A bail bondsman retrieved the former Heisman Trophy-winner on Friday and escorted him back to Nevada, where he faces a host of charges — including kidnapping and armed robbery — over a September incident involving the alleged armed assault of two sports memorabilia dealers at the Palace Station casino-hotel.

Simpson has claimed he had no knowledge of weapons being used during the confrontation, which he says was to retrieve items that had been stolen from him.

After his initial arrest in September, Simpson was released on $125,000 US bail and agreed to surrender his passport and not contact any witnesses or co-defendants.

Simpson and his friends Clarence (C.J.) Stewart and Charles Ehrlich have all pleaded not guilty to the charges. Three former co-defendants pleaded guilty to lesser charges and testified against Simpson at a previous hearing.

A trial is set for Las Vegas on April 7.

The 60-year-old Simpson gained notoriety after being acquitted in 1995 of murdering his wife, Nicole Brown-Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. He was, however, found liable for their deaths in a subsequent civil lawsuit and ordered to pay $33.5 million US to the families of the victims.

In 2006, he drew fire once again for his involvement with a ghostwritten book called If I Did It, which purports to describe how Simpson might have committed the killings.