Former Super Bowl Champ Darren Sharper Expected to Plead to West Hollywood Rape Charges Today

By FRED SHUSTER

Former NFL safety Darren Sharper, who is accused of drugging and raping women in four states, including two women he met at a West Hollywood nightclub, is expected to enter pleas today as part of a “global resolution” to resolve all the cases against him.

Sharper is due in a Los Angeles courtroom this morning, when he is expected to enter separate pleas as part of a plea agreement meant to resolve charges in all four jurisdictions.

Defense attorney Blair Berk and prosecutors declined to provide specifics about the plea agreement or what penalties the 39-year-old Super Bowl winner and former TV analyst might face. In addition to the West Hollywood and New Orleans cases, Sharper is facing similar allegations in Las Vegas and Tempe, Arizona.

The announcement of the plea deal came Friday after a tense morning of behind-the-scenes meetings between Los Angeles prosecutors, defense attorneys, Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor and Sharper, who was kept in a holding cell next to the seventh-floor downtown courtroom.

The most recent case against Sharper is in Las Vegas, where he faces two sexual assault charges for allegedly having sex with two tourists in January 2014 while the women were incapacitated. It is alleged that after Sharper went club-hopping with the women, he took them to his hotel room, where he drugged and sexually assaulted them while they were unconscious.

The account is similar to allegations made against him in Los Angeles and two other cities.

Sharper pleaded not guilty to drugging and raping two women in West Hollywood two years ago.

He also faces charges alleging that he sexually assaulted three women in 2013 in New Orleans. In Arizona, he is charged with drugging three women and sexually assaulting two of them in November 2013 in the suburb of Tempe.

A member of the league’s 2000s All-Decade Team and a five-time Pro Bowl selection, Sharper was suspended from his job as an analyst with the NFL Network following his initial arrest.

Sharper played for the Green Bay Packers in 1997-2004, the Minnesota Vikings in 2005-2008 and the New Orleans Saints in 2009-2010. He was on the Saints team that won Super Bowl XLIV in February 2010.

He has been jailed in Los Angeles since February 2014.

• City News Service
• Photo Credit: Twitter User NBC Sports ‏@NBCSports

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