Minutes after being convicted of robbery and kidnapping in Las Vegas, former football great O.J. Simpson said he would seek government intervention, claiming that his imprisonment would cost the nation’s cable news networks untold billions of dollars.

“My three trials have generated billions of dollars for the cable TV industry, not to mention the tabloids,” Mr. Simpson told reporters outside the Las Vegas courthouse.  “All those billions go away if I go away.”

Mr. Simpson made his case for the government bailing him out of jail, arguing that as long as he is a free man he is likely to become involved in other criminal cases that could generate much-needed television revenue.

“As long as the Juice is loose, there’s no telling what trouble I’ll get into,” he promised.  “And that means one thing to the TV networks: cold hard cash.”

The former Heisman Trophy winner said that with the nation’s economy teetering on recession, the U.S. could ill afford “putting a major financial asset like O.J. Simpson out of circulation.”

“You’ll see, the cable networks will miss me, and their bottom lines will show it,” he said.  “They can’t keep reporting about Lindsay Lohan being a lesbian forever.”

At the University of Minnesota’s School of Law, professor Davis Logsdon said there is “a valuable lesson to be learned” from Mr. Simpson’s conviction: “Apparently, in America it’s easier to get away with murder than stealing sports memorabilia.”