Kellen Winslow II pleads guilty to two sex-crimes, faces 12 years in prison

VISTA — Moments before his rape retrial was to start Monday in Vista, former NFL player Kellen Winslow II pleaded guilty to two sex-crimes charges including rape.

Winslow, 36, faces between 12 and 18 years in prison when he is sentenced in a deal that spares him from the possibility of life in prison had he been convicted of more serious charges at his retrial. The decision as to how much time Winslow will get will be up to Superior Court Judge Blaine Bowman.

With the jury standing outside the courtroom waiting for opening statements to start, Winslow admitted to two felony counts involving two victims: the 2003 rape of an unconscious teen, and the 2018 sexual battery of a 54-year-old hitchhiker in Encinitas.

Before going through with changing his plea, Winslow—son of a Chargers icon with the same name—hesitated several times throughout the hearing. After Bowman asked the defendant if he had had enough time to make his decision, Winslow looked back in the courtroom at his famous father, who nodded in agreement.

As part of the plea deal reached Monday afternoon, Winslow agreed not to challenge convictions from a trial earlier this year, when a Superior Court jury found him guilty of three charges, including the May 2018 rape of a 58-year-old homeless woman he had befriended. That same jury also convicted him of exposing himself to 57-year-old woman and committing a lewd act in front of a 77-year-old woman at a Carlsbad gym earlier this year.

Had he been convicted at trial of a second count of rape, Winslow was looking at a potential sentence of life in prison.