Years after District Judge Jackie Glass sentenced O.J. Simpson to prison, she and a group of attorney friends ran into him at a restaurant.
In the wake of her death Friday, her family is telling the story of the photo that resulted from that chance encounter with the man whose sentencing was probably her most famous act as a judge.
“OJ loved beautiful blonde women, so my mom’s friend baited him into taking a picture,” Glass’ daughter, actress and comedian Rachel Wolfson, wrote on social media. “He had no idea he was taking a photo with the judge who sent him to prison.”
Glass, her friends and Simpson are all smiling in the photo, which also included her other daughter, Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge Rebecca Wolfson.
On X, the photo had garnered 2.1 million views, 15,000 likes and 672 reposts as of Tuesday afternoon.
“I can’t believe we kept this picture under wraps for 6 years,” attorney Justin Randall, who is in the photo, commented on Rachel Wolfson’s Facebook page.
After Simpson was convicted in 2008 of kidnapping and robbing two sports memorabilia dealers at Palace Station the year before, Glass ordered the former football star to serve nine to 33 years behind bars.
He had previously been acquitted of the 1994 killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman but was found liable for their deaths in a civil trial.
Simpson was paroled in 2017 and died in 2024.
“One night, Jackie went out to dinner with her friends and there’s O.J.,” Glass’ husband, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, said in a Tuesday interview. “And I don’t think it was Jackie’s idea, because it wouldn’t be her idea. It was one of the girlfriends that she was with that said, ‘Hey, why don’t we go up and take a picture with O.J.?’”
Simpson liked posing for photos with people he perceived to be fans, he said, and his wife’s friends convinced her to be in the photo.
“He had no idea that the sentencing judge that sent him to prison was standing just a few feet away,” Wolfson said.
After leaving the bench in 2011, Glass worked as a mediator.
Former Clark County District Attorney David Roger, who prosecuted Simpson, said he and Glass traded Simpson stories at a mediation, including the one about the photo.
Glass told him it happened at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people still wore masks, he said. Glass described removing her mask right before the photo was taken, evading recognition from Simpson, he recalled.
Malcolm LaVergne, a Las Vegas lawyer who represented Simpson, said his client held Glass in high regard.
Simpson thought she was fair and controlled her courtroom well, LaVergne said, but believed his sentence was too long.
The attorney recalled that Simpson also told him about seeing Glass at an event.
“I don’t know if he knew she was in that specific photo, but he saw her,” he said. “She couldn’t just hide the whole time. He knew who she was.”
He added: “If that is cathartic to Rachel to post that to honor her mother, I am 100 percent for it.”
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.
