Ex-NFL player Darren Sharper sentenced to 9 years in prison

LOS ANGELES — Former NFL safety Darren Sharper, after pleading guilty to sexual assault and attempted sexual assault in a plea deal with Arizona prosecutors, was sentenced to nine years in prison.

On Tuesday, Sharper is expected to enter a plea through video conference to similar charges in Las Vegas, where his attorney David Chesnoff would ask that a sentence in that case also run concurrent to sentences in other states. Sharper would not likely serve time in a Nevada prison, Chesnoff said.

Sharper, 39, who is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women in four states, changed his plea on Monday in Phoenix via video-conferencing from Los Angeles, where he remains in jail. Later in the day, Sharper changed his plea in the Los Angeles charges to no contest and another in Louisiana that carries a 20-year jail term.

Sharper reached a “global” plea agreement that aims to bring resolution to all nine formal rape charges across four states.

Sharper has been in a Los Angeles jail since he was arrested on Jan. 17, 2014, on charges that he drugged and raped women. He also has been accused of sexually assaulting three women in New Orleans in 2013 and was indicted in Arizona on charges he drugged three women and sexually assaulted two of them in November 2013.

In Phoenix, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Warren Granville said Sharper will serve his time in federal custody and that the Louisiana case will be resolved through a federal court.

Sharper admitted TO sexually assaulting one victim in the Arizona case. Police had said Sharper drugged and sexually assaulted three women at an apartment in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe in November 2013.

On Friday, Sharper was charged with rape in Las Vegas. The two sexual assault charges stem from allegations that he forced sex on two women in the early morning hours of Jan. 16, 2014, the day before Sharper was arrested in California, while the women were unconscious or otherwise unable to resist or consent.

The women arrived at Surrender night club at the Encore around midnight, when they were approached by a group of people with Sharper, who had private bottle service, according to a police report.

Sharper then invited the women to Light nightclub at Mandalay Bay, where they also met a man named Brian Davenport, and Sharper mixed them a drink and told them about a “party” at his penthouse suite at the Cosmopolitan.

One of the women said that she “started to feel funny before they had left the night club,” the police report stated.

When the four arrived at the suite, Sharper brought them to the balcony and “suggested that they all do shots, which all agreed,” according to the report.

One of the women woke up in Sharper’s bed and noticed a cut on her face and her foot. She told him she was hungover, and Sharper offered her another drink as a cure.

“The next thing she remembers was Sharper kissing her, and then they had sex,” the report stated. She “became very upset and began crying, stating that she did not try to stop him, but that she did not do it willingly.”

The other woman woke up on a couch, convinced that she also had been raped.

Davenport, who said he also believed he was drugged, told police he blacked out after taking a shot on the balcony and didn’t remember anything until the next day when he saw Sharper in the casino.

Davenport had lost his cell phone and asked Sharper about it.

“Sharper removed it from his front pocket and gave it to Davenport,” the report stated. “Nothing else was said.”

The women were tested at University Medical Center for sexual assault, and decided to go to police after learning about similar charges in other states against Sharper.

The women later tested positive for the sedative Zolpidem, which police said was found in a shot glass in the Phoenix apartment. Sharper had a prescription for the drug.

Sharper played in the NFL for 14 years, with the Minnesota Vikings, the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints. The five-time Pro Bowl player retired in 2010.

Review-Journal reporter David Ferrara contributed to this report.