Darren Sharper pleads guilty to sexual assualt
By Ryan Lehrman
Five-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champ Darren Sharper was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual assault.
Former NFL safety Darren Sharper pleaded guilty to sexual assault in Arizona on Monday, and faces nine years in prison with lifetime probation.
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Sharper, who played 14 years in the league, was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting at least nine women across four states including Arizona, California, Louisiana and Nevada. The cases involved victims who shared similar stories that he slipped them drugs and assaulted them while they were unconscious or unable to consent.
This week, 39-year-old Sharper appeared in a Phoenix courtroom via video conferencing from Los Angeles and changed his plea to reach a plea deal, which will resolve charges in all four states. His sentences will run concurrently.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, it is uncommon to sentence defendants immediately following a guilty plea, as they normally take weeks or months. There will be more hearings in Las Vegas this week and New Orleans next month. Sharper has been jailed in L.A. since February 2014.
The ex-NFL All Pro won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints in the 2009-2010 season. Before that, he enjoyed a rather illustrious career, making the Pro Bowl five times over his stint with the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Viking and the Saints. The former safety retired after the 2010 season, going on to work as an analyst for the NFL network.
All of the accusation came on the heels of his retirement. Today, the news still feels utterly jarring for a handsome, successful former athlete to commit such heinous crimes. Though friends and former teammates said women would practically pour over Sharper, clinical psychologist David Lisak told Sports Illustrated in June 2014 that rapists are motivated not only by sex but by “power over someone else, control over someone else.”
The plea deal imbues yet another dark spot on the NFL’s image following a season fraught with off-the-field problems, from Ray Rice to Adrian Peterson.
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