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)

American culture and sports are now once again intertwined.

Not as a result of Muhammad Ali being laid to rest, or on account of Serena Williams finally getting closer to equal pay, but because our college campuses are plagued by an epidemic that transcends sports, education, entertainment and humanity.

Rape culture is real folks, I have seen it on display first-hand.

And now thanks to an incredibly smart, clever, talented and courageous young woman, you have all been exposed to it too.

The much-publicized rape case of Stanford swimmer Brock Turner has called all non-believers out on the carpet.

Attacks on Turner’s nameless accuser for the amount of alcohol she consumed, claiming “she brought it on herself,” or questions asked of her like, “Why would you lead him on? What were you wearing? What did you say to give him the impression that he had your consent?”

They are all baseless and irrelevant.

Sports have shined a spotlight on this issue recently, but not in the way we all would have hoped.

Darren Sharper‘s rape case revealed for too many how far a champion could fall, as opposed to how deplorable his actions were.

Baylor’s sexual assault scandal is only now coming to light, three years after the first incident took place, but the narrative in the sports world is more focused on how many recruits will decommit or what it will do to the Bears chances of making the College Football Playoff, instead of hammering the institution that kept it all behind closed doors, on the hush, before an outside entity uncovered all the gory details of its depravity.

As Vice President Joe Biden highlighted in his open letter to the survivor, published by BuzzFeed, these are all the wrong questions and each one reflects the rape culture that festers in our society, whether the naysayers are willing to acknowledge its existence or not.

Biden’s letter was loquacious, but stern, conjuring up every emotion on the spectrum from saddness, to anger, to inspiration, pointing out all the ails surrounding the act of rape, from suggesting the survivor’s letter be “required reading,” to explicitly stating that she “changed the world.”

“I do not know your name,” Biden wrote, “but I know a lot of people failed you that January night and in the months that followed. … You were failed by a culture on our college campuses where one in five women is sexually assaulted.”

READ BIDEN’S FULL LETTER HERE

If you are hearing that number for the first time it can be jarring.

Brace yourself, it is likely worse than that.

In an interview I recently conducted with two members of Rutgers University’s Office of Violence Prevention and Victim’s Assistance, it was divulged to me that the numbers are likely much higher. The statistics are merely a reflection of the reported incidents and survey responses where students were willing to be honest about their experiences with sexual violence, for many others, the struggle to cope is all too real.

“If (the numbers of reported incidents or rape) kept going up for 10 years that would probably be a good thing as long as we are also seeing the resources to help survivors, the climate starts to change, so that we don’t see as much violence happening in the first place,” said Brady Root, prevention education coordinator for Rutgers’ VPVA.

“I mean that’s the real goal, to stop the violence before it occurs, not just to respond to it afterwards,” Root said.

If the Stanford survivor’s letter becomes required reading at every high school and institution for higher education in this country I guarantee it will have an effect on rape culture.

At Rutgers the policy is not “no means no,” the university instituted a “yes policy” in recent years, requiring a clear “yes” be spoken as means of consenting to sexual activity.

Biden indicated he was disappointed in the statistics, pointing out that the numbers have not gone down in two decades, calling the response “a failure.”

“You were failed by anyone who dared to question this one clear and simple truth: Sex without consent is rape,” Biden wrote. “Period. It is a crime.”

The vice president also called out onlookers for their inaction under these circumstances, shaming those too confused or torn to step in.

“I don’t know your name, ” Biden continued, “but thanks to you, I know heroes ride bicycles. … They did not say ‘It’s none of my business.’ They did not worry about the social or safety implications of intervening, or about what their peers might think. Those two men epitomize what it means to be a responsible bystander.”

Just like Biden said it is on ALL of us.

It doesn’t matter what she was wearing, or how intoxicated she may have been. It doesn’t matter that Turner had a clean record prior to this, or that the survivor may have been interested in him romantically.

This is a cut and dry issue, there is NO gray area. He was having sex with an unconscious woman, on the ground behind a dumpster.

READ SURVIVOR’S FULL LETTER HERE

The survivor put it best when recounting her understanding of the events as told to her by police.

“Note; if a girl falls down help her get back up. If she is too drunk to even walk and falls down, do not mount her, hump her, take off her underwear, and insert your hand inside her vagina. If a girl falls down help her up. If she is wearing a cardigan over her dress don’t take it off so that you can touch her breasts. Maybe she is cold, maybe that’s why she wore the cardigan.”

Read the signs people, they aren’t as enigmatic as you think.

On Tuesday, a federal judge formally accepted former NFL safety Darren Sharper’s plea deal in a drug and rape case, adding that Sharper could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

Darren Sharper Could Face 15-20 Years Under New Plea Deal In Rape Case

U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo previously rejected a deal that could have entailed a nine-year sentence.

Attorneys say federal sentencing guidelines call for a sentence in the range of roughly 15 or 16 to 20 years, although that could be less depending on Sharper’s cooperation.

Sentencing was set for June 16.

The star safety has also pleaded guilty or no-contest in state courts to charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted women in Arizona, California and Louisiana.

Those charges involve nine victims, but Judge Milazzo said in court earlier this month that there may be as many as 16.

Shackled and clad in orange prison garb, Sharper said little besides answering basic, yes-or-no questions from Milazzo regarding his understanding of the implications of his plea deal.  Asked if was entering the plea because he was, indeed, guilty, he replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

A second-round pick out of William & Mary in the 1997 NFL Draft, Sharper was selected 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 retired from his 14-year career in 2011. He was working as an NFL network analyst when women began telling police in several cities similar stories of blacking out after drinking with him and waking up groggy to find they had been sexually assaulted.

U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo has denied former 5X Pro-Bowler Darren Sharper‘s plea deal of a nine-year sentence.

Milazzo told Sharper, in his orange prison coveralls and shackles, “The court cannot accept this plea agreement.”

Sharper’s lawyers had been anticipating the plea getting denied as the acknowledged they were preparing for trial in a court filing earlier this month, despite pleas usually getting accepted as formal federal prosecutor, Tania Tetlow pointed out.

“Usually, a federal plea agreement does not bind the judge as much as this one would have,” Tetlow said.

Tetlow also mentioned that plea deals with a specific sentence, like Sharper’s nine years, are uncommon.  Sharpe wanted his sentence reduced as he complied with a long list of requirements, including helping authorities in the Louisiana case.

Now Sharper and his lawyers have until March 3 to decide if they will withdraw the guilty plea offered last year.  harper pleaded guilty to charges involving four states while also pleading guilty or no contest in the state courts of Arizona, California, Louisiana, and Nevada.

Sharper has admitted to sexually assaulting one of the victims of the Arizona case. However police reports indicate that he allegedly drugged and sexually abused three women at an apartment in Tempe.

Sharper played 14 years in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, and New Orleans Saints, he was named an All-Pro six times and won Super Bowl XLIV with the Saints.  He retired in 2010.

Champions Square, which is located outside the New Orleans Saints’ Mercedes-Benz Superdome, is getting a redecoration. While there will be several photos taken down and replaced, the big one that will be removed is the Tracy Porter interception.

The interception that sealed the Saints’ first Super Bowl win in 2010 is iconic. Even the commentating track from the pick is supposedly well-known in New Orleans. “It’s picked off! It’s Tracy Porter again,”  Jim Henderson exclaimed. “He’s running free! He’s gonna go all the way! Hand outstretched! It is a Saint touchdown! Seventy yards on the return! Seventy yards on the return by Porter!”

After years of obscurity, the Saints finally won a championship by picking off arguably one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time, Peyton Manning. However, the photo is now unfortunately tainted. In the background, Darren Sharper is running behind the cornerback while raising up a ‘number one’ sign.

Sharper, who after retirement became a NFL Network analyst, pleaded guilty of sexual assault and drugging women in four different states. In his multi-state deal, he is expected to be sentenced to 20 years, but is eligible for release after nine. This is possible because all four states’ sentences will be served simultaneously.

Now, this is not the only banner that will be changed, as they claim Champions Square’s redecoration was decided prior to Sharper’s legal woes. But it is priority number one since the conviction.

“We’re going through some options now. Definitely going will be the Tracy Porter picture,” Ben Hales, a Saints executive, said. “The shame of it is, that’s an iconic moment from the Super Bowl. People can probably do the TV and radio call in their head. There just happens to be somebody in the background who is not someone our organization or the NFL Network is likely to be celebrating.”

Sharper played his final two seasons for the Saints, but spent his first eight years in Green Bay and another four seasons in Minnesota. He was fired from his NFL Network job after the first indictment.

The extremely weird tale of Darren Sharper, former Super Bowl winning safety and NFL Network analyst, has officially come to an end. In a multi-state negotiated plea deal, Sharper is expected to be sentenced to a 20-year prison term, where he is eligible for parole after nine years.

Sharper was initially indicted for sexual assault against nine women in four states — Louisiana, Arizona, California and Nevada to be specific. The charges stem from separate incidents where the defendant drugged women and raped them. In his plea deal, he pleaded guilty to the incident in Phoenix — where he sexually assaulted one woman and attacked another — no contest in California and is expected to plead guilty to the Nevada and Louisiana charges.

“Sharper, 39, entered his plea just as his preliminary hearing was set to begin before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor,” stated in a statement released by Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. “Sentencing was put over until July 15. He is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in state prison under the terms of a negotiated settlement. Sharper pleaded to two counts of rape by use of drugs and four counts of furnishing a controlled substance.”

But according to this nationwide negotiated deal, all four states’ charges would be served simultaneously. This means he would probably only serve around nine years of a twenty-year sentence with time served being deducted, according to NY Daily News’ sources.

And while this seems like a light sentence for what is essentially a serial rapist, one of the victims is happy about the speedy court proceedings. “I represent Jane Doe #2 in the California case,” civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred told the Daily News. “My client is happy that Darren Sharper entered a plea and she is looking forward to providing her victim impact statement in court in July in California.”