LOS ANGELES — Former NFL star Darren Sharper removed all doubt Monday that he drugged and raped women, taking the first of several legal steps to own up to sex assaults in four states that will send him to federal prison for about nine years.
In two separate cases, Sharper pleaded guilty to sexual assault in Arizona and no contest in California to raping two women he knocked out with a potent sedative mixed with booze.
Sharper, 39, said it was in his best interest to enter the pleas.
The hearings came as Los Angeles prosecutors were prepared to present evidence of Sharper’s fall from grace as a former all-pro safety who won a Super Bowl title with the New Orleans Saints. His clean reputation took a hit when women began telling police in several cities similar stories of blacking out while drinking with him and waking up groggy to find they had been sexually abused.
Defense lawyers previously said the sexual intercourse was consensual. One lawyer had said Sharper didn’t mix the sleepy shots of booze.
But Sharper wielded no defense in court Monday.
By not contesting the California charges, he admitted he raped two women he drugged after meeting them at a West Hollywood bar, the first in October 2013 and the second in January 2014. The pleas have the same effect as a conviction.
Both encounters were eerily similar.
In the October case, Sharper invited a woman and her friend that he met at Bootsy Bellows nightclub to go to a party. On the way, he said he needed to get something at his Century City hotel and invited them upstairs.
He insisted they drink a shot of alcohol and they both blacked out. One woman awoke the next morning with Sharper on top of her having sex. Her friend woke up in an adjoining room and interrupted the act and both women left.
Under the unusual deal negotiated by Sharper’s lawyers and state and federal prosecutors, Sharper will serve his sentences concurrently in a federal prison, though the full term has not yet been announced.
He was immediately sentenced to nine years in the Arizona case and will face 20 years in the California case when sentenced July 15. However, because the crimes he committed in California require that he only serve half the prison term — and with credit for the 13 months he’s spent in jail — he will spend about nine more years behind bars, lawyers said.
