Jury in Kellen Winslow II case convicts on rape, deliberating on 8 counts

VISTA _ Former NFL tight end Kellen Winslow II has been found guilty of raping a homeless woman last year, as well as misdemeanor charges of indecent exposure and committing a lewd act related to other victims, a jury revealed Monday.

The North County jury, which has been deliberating since last week, reached verdicts on four of 12 counts filed against the one-time Pro Bowl player. The panel found him not guilty of a second count of committing a lewd act, which prosecutors said happened in front of a woman in a hot tub in Carlsbad, Calif.

The rape charge stemmed from a May 13, 2018 assault on a 58-year-old homeless woman in Encinitas, Calif. The misdemeanor counts had to do with accusations that Winslow flashed a 57-year-old woman in that city, while she was tending to a garden outside her home, and an incident involving a 77-year-old woman at a Carlsbad, Calif. gym.

Jury deliberations started June 5. After Vista Judge Blaine Bowman took the verdicts, he sent the panel back to the jury room to continue deliberating on the remaining counts before breaking for the day. The jury is expected to return to court Tuesday morning to resume deliberations.

Last Friday marked a year since Winslow was initially arrested after someone spotted him enter a mobile home in a park for seniors, then emerge shirtless. His camp said it had been a misunderstanding.

But a week later, authorities dropped a bomb with the announcement that they had rearrested Winslow, and were charging him with a string of sex crimes targeting women in their 50s or older, including two counts of forcible rape.

The accusers included a hitchhiker and a homeless woman who said they'd been raped in his SUV, and a woman who said a stranger exposed himself in her yard.