Former NFL star Darren Sharper will likely spend 15 years prison under a revised plea deal unveiled Tuesday.
via Nola.com:
U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo last month rejected as inadequate that nine-year federal prison term in Sharper’s initial global plea agreement with the U.S. government and four states. Milazzo accepted a new guilty plea from the former football star on Tuesday.
Under the new deal, Sharper will more closely conform with federal sentencing guidelines that recommend 188 to 235 months for the drug conspiracy and distribution violations to which he admitted guilt.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael McMahon, who read the supplemental plea agreement aloud while standing next to Sharper and defense attorney Billy Gibbens, said the government was making no specific recommendation of how much time Sharper should serve.
But McMahon said the government might recommend leniency when Sharper is sentenced June 16, if his cooperation proves helpful in the upcoming trial of Sharper’s alleged accomplices Brandon Licciardi and Erik Nunez. Sharper’s co-defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, are scheduled for trial May 12 in Milazzo’s federal courtroom.
“Mr. Sharper has agreed to cooperate,” McMahon said. “We may bring to the attention of the court his cooperation, if we deem that to be substantial. We are not bound to make such a notice to the court. That’s going to be within our discretion. No promises have been made, but the possibility is there.”
Milazzo accepted the new agreement, but warned Sharper the ultimate decision on the length of his sentence will be hers alone, and that it could fall somewhere outside the federal sentencing recommendations at her sole discretion.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sharper said.
The guidelines from the U.S. Probation Office recommend a sentence for Sharper’s federal crimes ranging from 15 years and 8 months to 19 years and 7 months, with a maximum of 20 years.
Sharper, 40, has pleaded guilty or no contest to charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted nine women in four states. The global plea agreement the former NFL Network commentator entered into May 29, 2015, resolved cases pending in California, Arizona, Nevada and Louisiana. It included Sharper pleading guilty to raping three women in two New Orleans incidents between August and September of 2013.
We still can’t believe Darren Sharper is a rapist.
Comments are closed.