LOS ANGELES | Former NFL star Darren Sharper was sentenced Tuesday a 20-year prison term, ending a tour of shame and punishment in the courthouse where he first admitted drugging and raping women in four states. Under the terms of a plea deal negotiated with prosecutors in four states, Sharper will be eligible for parole in about eight years because California law requires he serve half his sentence and he has already been behind bars more than two years since his arrest. The sentence will run concurrently with a previous 18-year sentence handed down in a federal court in Louisiana on similar charges, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the eastern district of Louisiana. “I hope this scumbag will now feel as worthless as he has made me feel.”

Sharper, 41, was working as an NFL network analyst when women in several cities began reporting how nights of partying with their girlfriends and Sharper ended with them waking up in his hotel room confused and discovering they had been sexually assaulted. It doesn’t matter whether it’s day or night, I can see a guy and automatically in my head think, ‘What if this guy tries to rape me?’ ”

Superior Court Judge Michael E. Pastor noted the statements she and another victim gave as he sentenced the one-time Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers player. It doesn’t matter whether it’s day or night, I can see a guy and automatically in my head think, ‘What if this guy tries to rape me?’”

The woman said her surfing career fizzled. Sharper, a five-time Pro Bowl safety who retired from the NFL in 2011 after helping lead the New Orleans Saints to a Super Bowl championship, had pleaded guilty in federal court in Louisiana in May 2015 to distributing controlled substances to three unsuspecting women and then sexually assaulting them while they were incapacitated. From the Los Angeles courtroom, Sharper appeared by video-conferencing in a Phoenix courtroom and pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting one woman and trying to attack another in suburban Phoenix in 2013. Last year, Sharper pleaded guilty or no contest to drugging and raping a total of nine women in multiple states, although a judge said a pre-sentencing report indicated there were as many as 16 victims. The 41-year-old pleaded no contest to charges in California of rape by use of drugs and furnishing a controlled substance, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said in a statement.
Ex National Football League player Darren Sharper is sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping two women in the American city of Los Angeles, California. Sharper has been accused of attacking a dozen women across the United States.