A pro football player and former College of William & Mary athlete was sentenced to nine years in prison Monday for sexually assaulting women.
Darren Sharper, a 38-year-old man who played defensive back for the college and for three NFL teams, pleaded guilty Monday to one felony count of sexual assault and one felony count of attempted sexual assault in Maricopa County, Ariz., according to Jerry Cobb, the county attorney’s office’s public information officer.
Three felony counts of possession of dangerous drugs were dropped as part of the agreement in Arizona, court records show.
Cobb said Sharper pleaded via telephone from Los Angeles, where he is currently in custody.
Sharper pleaded no contest to two felony counts of rape by use of drugs and four felony counts of furnishing a controlled subtance in Los Angeles Monday following his pleas in Arizona.
Assistant Chief of the media relations division for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office Jane Robison said in a news release he is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in a state prison as part of his plea deal.
She said Sharper met two women at a West Hollywood nightclub on Oct. 30, 2013, and invited them into his Los Angeles hotel room, telling them he had to stop to pick something up on their way to another party.
Once in the hotel room, he offered both women a drink, which knocked them out for several hours, the news release said.
The first woman “woke up naked hours later with Sharper sexually assaulting her,” Robison said. The second woman woke up and “interrupted his actions.”
On Jan. 14, 2014, Sharper repeated the actions, inviting two women up to his room and offering them a drink, Robison said.
The women woke up hours later, and one of them believed she had been sexually assaulted, the news release said.
Sharper will be formally sentenced on the California charges July 15.
In addition to the Arizona and California charges, Sharper is also facing sexual assault charges in Nevada and Louisiana.
In Louisiana, he faces one felony count of distributing scheduled substances with the intent to commit rape, and one count of aiding and abetting to intentionally distribute drugs with the intent of committing rape.
He is scheduled to appear in court on those charges April 6.
In Nevada, Sharper is expected to take a plea deal that comes with a sentence of between 38 months and eight years in prison for one felony charge of attempted sexual assault, ESPN reports.
Court records show he is currently facing two felony counts of sexual assault in Nevada and is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.
Sharper retired from the NFL in 2011 after spending the majority of his pro career with the Green Bay Packers, who drafted him out of W&M in 1997. He was traded to the New Orleans Saints in 2009 and won a Super Bowl championship before retiring in 2010.
He served as an analyst for NFL Network before his arrest in January 2014.
