Former Minnesota Vikings safety Darren Sharper has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for a string of sexual assaults on women across four different states.
The 41-year-old was handed the sentence in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, as part of a plea agreement in which he admitted drugging and raping two women.
The Los Angeles Times reports he has been accused by more than a dozen victims across five jurisdictions in four different states – California, Arizona, Nevada and two in Louisiana – who all say they were drugged and assaulted.
The plea deal was negotiated with four of those jurisdictions, but CBS News reports one judge in Louisiana rejected it and sentenced him to 18 years, which could be tacked on to his sentence if Sharper’s appeal against it fails.
According to the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office, the five-time Pro Bowler, who spent four years at the Vikings before leaving for the New Orleans Saints – where he won a Super Bowl – pleaded guilty to rapes that happened in West Hollywood on Oct. 30, 2013 and Jan. 14, 2014.
I hope this scumbag will now feel as worthless as he has made me feel.
In the first incident, he met two women at a nightclub and invited them up to his hotel room, where he gave them a drink that made them pass out. One of the women woke up naked hours later to find Sharper sexually assaulting her, with the other woman stopping him when she woke up.
A few months later he met two women separately at the same nightclub and against invited them back to his room and repeated his spiked drink move, with one woman saying she believed she’d been sexually assaulted when she woke up hours later.
One of the victims told the court that the night she was raped was “the worst night of my life.”
“The only good thing about this situation is that this disgusting low-life human will be sent to prison for many years and is likely he will never be able to do to this to another woman again,” she said, according to CBS News. “I hope this scumbag will now feel as worthless as he has made me feel.”
