Former 49ers star sentenced to 15 years to life for rape conviction
SAN JOSE — Former San Francisco 49ers star Dana Stubblefield was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison Thursday for raping a prospective babysitter at his Morgan Hill home five years ago.
The sentence was issued by Judge Arthur Bocanegra after denying a defense motion for a new trial. Last week, the Sixth District Court of Appeal denied a related petition filed on behalf of Stubblefield by his attorneys Kenneth Rosenfeld and Allen Sawyer, who plan to appeal their client’s conviction.
In July, a jury found Stubblefield guilty of raping, with the threat of a gun, a woman — identified in court as Jane Doe — who had come to his home to interview for a babysitting job on April 9, 2015. Stubblefield was also convicted of forcible oral copulation and false imprisonment. He has been held in the Santa Clara County Main Jail since the verdict.
During the trial, Deputy District Attorney Tim McInerney also called on the testimony of two women who testified to being assaulted by Stubblefield. Their claims were not charged because of issues with statutes of limitation and jurisdiction.
“’No’ meant nothing to this defendant. Based on his status, I think he was never held accountable for prior criminal behavior,” McInerney said in a statement Thursday. “Today, he was properly held accountable.”
Stubblefield’s attorneys continue to assert that they were stymied throughout the trial by Bocanegra’s refusal to allow them to present the crux of their defense — their claim that Doe had engaged in paid sex with Stubblefield and that she was not intellectually disabled as portrayed by the prosecution.
After the sentencing Thursday, Sawyer emphasized that the jury rejected two felony charges alleging that Stubblefield exploited a woman who was mentally incapable of providing consent to sex. During trial, they also sought to show that Doe’s proficiency with websites and social-media stood in contradiction to the prosecution’s claims of her intellectual disability.