Almost seventeen years after former football player OJ Simpson walked away as a free man from his murder trial, a prosecutor at the center of the case has accused the lead defense lawyer of Simpson to have tampered with a crucial piece of evidence.

On Thursday, former Los Angeles deputy district attorney Christopher Darden accused OJ Simpson’s defense lawyer — the late Johnnie Cochran — of “manipulating” one of the infamous gloves that the prosecution said linked the football player to the brutal murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

Right after OJ Simpson struggled to fit the glove on his hands, Johnnie Cochran famously warned the jury, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

On Thursday, during a panel discussion about the murder trial at Pace Law School in New York City, Christopher Darden, a member of the prosecution team, declared: “I think Johnnie tore the lining. There were some additional tears in the lining so that O.J.’s fingers couldn’t go all the way up into the glove.”

During a follow-up interview on Friday, Christopher Darden said that he noticed when OJ Simpson was trying on a glove for the jury, its structure appeared to have changed. “A bailiff told me the defense had it during the lunch hour.” He said he wasn’t accusing anyone specifically, adding: “It’s been my suspicion for a long time that the lining has been manipulated.”

Christopher Darden said he had previously voiced out similar concerns in various TV interviews, but could not recall the details. Darden’s provocative charge shocked key participants in the trial and related legal action. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz — who was a member of Simpson’s defense team — and Paul Callan, who represented Nicole Brown Simpson’s estate in a successful civil trial against OJ Simpson, said it was the first time they had ever heard the accusation.

The remarks of Christopher Darden came after Dershowitz, a fellow panelist, called his decision to have OJ Simpson try on the controversial glove for the first time before the jury “the most stupid thing” a prosecutor could have done.

Dershowitz argued that if Darden had evidence there had been tampering, he would have had an ethical obligation to report the alleged misconduct. He also questioned why Christopher Darden had not filed a grievance with the state bar association. The former Los Angeles deputy district attorney responded by saying that this would have been a “whiny-little-snitch approach to life” and that was not what he believed in because it did not change anything.

Derek Sells, the managing partner of Johnnie Cochran’s old law firm — The Cochran Firm — did not respond to requests for comment. A call to Cochran’s daughter, Tiffany Cochran Edwards, who is a communications director for the firm, was not immediately returned. Johnnie Cochran passed away in 2005 from a brain tumor at age of 67.

OJ Simpson was acquitted in the double murder case, despite what prosecutors described as a “mountain of evidence” against the former football player. The evidence included a blood-soaked glove found on his estate and a matching one found at the scene of the murder.

Questions about the lining of the gloves emerged during the trial in 1995, but they did not involve accusations of defense lawyers tampering with the evidence.

In 1997, a civil jury found OJ Simpson liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages to the families of the murder victims. OJ Simpson is currently serving up to 33 years in prison for a 2007 armed robbery in which he claimed he was trying to recover his own sports memorabilia.

Christie Prody, the former girlfriend of retired professional football player OJ Simpson, is the star of a new sex tape that is currently being shopped to multiple porn companies.

According to reports, Christie Prody, who dated OJ Simpson for 13 years, is shopping the sex tape herself. She has already contacted Vivid Entertainment, among others, in the hopes of selling a homemade sex tape, which does not star the 65-year-old former football player.

Reports said that the male featured in the video was the rebound guy of Christie prody following her breakup with OJ Simpson.

OJ Simpson used to be a running back, the American Football League’s Buffalo Bills’ first overall pick in the 1969 Common Draft, and also the first professional football player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season — a mark which he set in 1973. While five other players have passed the 2,000 rush yard mark, Simpson stands alone as the only player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a fourteen-game season (professional football changed to a sixteen-game season in 1978). OJ holds the record for the single season yards-per-game average, which stands at 143.1 ypg. Simpson was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. He also had a successful career in sports commentary and acting.