Ex-NFL Star Darren Sharper Gets 18 Years For Drugging, Sexually Assaulting Women

Former NFL safety Darren Sharper has been sentenced to 18 years in prison following his guilty pleas of drugging and raping several women, a federal judge in New Orleans ruled Thursday.

Ex-NFL Star Darren Sharper Gets 18 Years For Drugging, Sexually Assaulting Women

Sharper, 40, was accused of drugging and raping as many as 16 women in four states.

U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo sentenced Sharper, six months after she rejected an earlier agreement that would have seen the former New Orleans Saints star serve nine years behind bars.

Milazzo added she could not understand how he did what he did, since he was college educated and obviously had grown up “in one of the most loving households.”

“We can never ignore the damage you inflicted on those women and society at large,” she said.

Sharper, jailed since February 2014, had pleaded guilty in federal court in New Orleans to drugging three women so he could rape them. He also has pleaded guilty or no contest in state courts in Louisiana, Arizona, California and Nevada to charges arising from allegations of drugging and raping women.

“I would like to apologize a thousand times,” Sharper said. He looked at the floor as he said, “I’m still trying to figure out why I made some of these choices. … I lived my life right for 38 years, then I took this path.”

His voice also broke slightly as he added his parent’s hadn’t raised him to behave in that manner.

Defense attorney Billy Gibbens requested leniency because Sharper’s testimony helped get “late” guilty pleas from two co-defendants who will be sentenced in October. Sharper will be sentenced on Aug. 25 in Louisiana state court, Gibbens said outside court.

Sharper, shackled and wearing an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit, on Thursday said he apologized to his victims “1,000 times,” and sounded genuinely remorseful.

“They didn’t deserve anything being a part of my heinous decisions,” he said sobbing.

An Arizona judge sentenced him to nine years and what both Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael McMahon and Gibbens said amounted to lifetime probation.

McMahon told the judge in court, “I don’t think Mr. Sharper has really wrapped his head around the fact that he is a serial rapist.”

Prosecutors suggested a 9-year prison term for Sharper under a multi-jurisdictional plea deal, but Milazzo rejected it in June as too lenient. The sentence she imposed, 18 years and four months imprisonment, was 15 months short of the maximum. Sharper also was fined $20,000.

Sharper is receiving the same sentence on each of three counts of distributing drugs with intent of rape, but they will run concurrently with each other and with state sentences, the judge said. She added he will be on three years’ supervised release after he gets out of prison, including “sex treatment conditions” and registration as a sex offender.

Sharper’s family exited the courtroom without addressing any reporters. Gibbens later stated that the federal sentence won’t affect plea agreements in the four state courts.

Sharper or his friend Brandon Licciardi, a former sheriff’s deputy in neighboring St. Bernard Parish, put anti-anxiety drugs or sedatives into women’s drinks so they could rape them, according to a 15-page statement signed as part of Sharper’s plea agreement.

Milazzo has scheduled sentencing Oct. 13 for Licciardi and a second New Orleans codefendant, Erik Nunez.

Like Sharper, Licciardi and Nunez admitted distributing drugs with the intent to commit rape. Their federal plea agreements say Licciardi has accepted a 17-year sentence, with 10 years for Nunez.

Sharper was named All-Pro six times and chosen for the Pro Bowl five times during a career that included stints with the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings. He played in two Super Bowls, one with the Packers as a rookie and one with New Orleans Saints when they won in 2010.

He ended a 14-year career in 2011. He began working as an NFL network analyst when women began informing police in several cities similar stories of blacking out while drinking with him and awakening groggy to find they had been sexually assaulted.

LOS ANGELES, CA FEBRUARY 20: Former NFL safety Darren Sharper pleads not guilty to charges of allegedly drugging and raping a pair of women he met at a West Hollywood nightclub, in a Los Angeles Superior courtroom February 20, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. Sharper’s bail has been increased from $200,000 to $1 million. (Photo by Bob Chamberlin-Pool/Getty Images)