An open microphone at the Lovelock Correctional Facility during Thursday's parole hearing for O.J. Simpson led to a war of words after the fact between Simpson's attorney Malcolm LaVergne and former Nevada state correctional officer Jeffrey Felix, who wrote a book about his time as a guard at Lovelock, where Simpson has been jailed for the past nine years.
The live mic during the recess in the hearing caught Simpson, LaVergne and another man in the room talking, presumably about Felix.
"He saved you from having any infractions because you were going to get written up for it," a voice off-camera -- presumably LaVergne -- said. "You were going to get written up and he intervened and he saved you. He's your savior."
"He's a one and only, that's for sure," Simpson said.
After the hearing, the Simpson camp's disdain for Felix and his book continued.
"This Jeff Felix is ... I mean, you see that mullet and how his hair's dyed, right?" LaVergne said in response to a question from an ESPN reporter. "You don't buy credibility from people who are like that, who even look like that, and you should have at least tried to vet the story, for the last year you could have vetted the story."
Felix wrote a book, "Guarding the Juice: How O.J. Simpson Became my Prison BFF," and appeared as part of ESPN's coverage during the case.
Earlier, LaVergne called Felix a "fraud" and also said, "I'll tell you exactly what Jeff Felix is: He was here, he worked in the canteen and Mr. Simpson, like every other inmate when they go to canteen once a week, would see this guy. And he was kind of like a minstrel. He'd sit there and tell jokes. He wanted to impress Mr. Simpson. And that's the end of it. ... He couldn't identify Mr. Simpson's cell, OK? Maybe he knows the unit because someone told him, but he certainly couldn't identify the cell."
LaVergne says he wants to strip Felix of his pension, and that the book violates the confidentiality policy of the prison by "publishing that silly, ridiculous book that he did."
Felix, appearing on ESPN's Outside The Lines after the hearing but before LaVergne held his news conference, defended himself.
"The only reason I wrote the book is to let the public know what's going on behind the razor wire," Felix said, adding, "I never talked anything but good about O.J., being a role model inmate, following the rules and regulations, doing everything he was supposed to do. Nothing negative is in that book about O.J."
"And here he is throwing on the bus driver's uniform to throw me under the bus in front of millions of people, throwing my name out there," he added. "He's got my mom all upset. That's just not the right thing for him to do.
"This is his one chance to get parole in a parole hearing and he throws me under the bus. What kind of person would do that?"