The Los Angeles Times has been mocked for an excruciating error in its OJ Simpson’s obituary — suggesting that former President Donald Trump had served the accused murderer’s prison sentence.
“Long before the city woke up on a fall morning in 2017, Trump walked out of Lovelock Correctional Center outside Reno, a free man for the first time in nine years,” the left-leaning paper wrote, somehow mistaking the presidential nominee for the disgraced ex-NFL player.
“He didn’t go far, moving into 5,000-square-foot home in Vegas, with a Bentley in the driveway,” the obituary added.
The embarrassing blunder was later corrected and Trump’s name was replaced with that of Simpson, who died of cancer this week at the age of 76.
In an editor’s note, the LA Times wrote: “An earlier version of this obituary incorrectly contained a typographical error that used the wrong name when describing Simpson leaving Lovelock Correctional Center.
“The error has been corrected,” it said.
But the news outlet was roundly derided online for its gargantuan gaffe.
“LA Times typo in OJ’s obit: ‘according to L.A. Times writer Elaine Woo, O.J. Simpson was arrested for robbery, but it was Donald Trump who served time for nine years,” wrote Katy Grimes, editor of the California Globe.
“Members of the media are just itching to write stories about Trump being found guilty and going to prison,’” she added.
Republican strategist Steve Guest wrote: “Unbelievable. The LA Times is out of control.”
And GOP Rapid Research Director Jake Schneider added: “And I bet they still won’t understand why trust in media is at an all-time low.”
Simpson served time at Lovelock for his role in a 2007 robbery in which he and a group of armed men broke into a hotel room at Las Vegas’ Palace Station Hotel Casino and confronted a pair of sports memorabilia dealers, claiming they were in possession of his stolen memorabilia.
The disgraced gridiron great, who died of prostate cancer Wednesday, was famously acquitted on criminal charges that he killed his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
He was later found liable in a civil suit and ordered to pay the families $33.5 million in damages.