Reports detail rape charges
Women tell police they blacked out after receiving drinks from former NFL star.
Two women told Los Angeles police detectives that ex-NFL star Darren Sharper insisted they take drinks he made before they blacked out and were sexually assaulted, according to LAPD documents.
Three LAPD reports obtained by The Times provide new details about the statements women gave to police that resulted in criminal charges against Sharper. The Super Bowl-winning safety has been jailed for more than a year amid investigations into allegations that he attacked women in L.A., Las Vegas, New Orleans and Tempe, Ariz.
The LAPD reports were obtained under a public records request filed with the Tempe Police Department. The names of the women were redacted.
Leonard Levine, one of Sharper’s attorneys in Los Angeles, said that “much of the information in those reports will be contradicted by other evidence and the truth of the statements has yet to be tested in court.”
The first report describes an Oct. 30, 2013, incident at a Century City hotel. A woman told LAPD detectives she was introduced to Sharper earlier in the night through a mutual friend.
About 2 a.m., the woman told detectives, Sharper asked if she would go with him to his Century City hotel “so he could get something.”
When they arrived at Sharper’s hotel room, the woman told police, he poured her a drink that she did not want. Sharper was “insistent that she drink it,” according to the report.
“The [victim] was under the impression that they were going to be going to an after-party,” according to the report. “So, the [victim] went to use the restroom and does not recall anything after that.”
The next morning, the woman told police, she woke up naked, with Sharper on top of her. The woman said she felt groggy and told Sharper that she had to leave, but, she told police, he “continued having sex with her,” the report said.
The woman later told police that a friend was at the hotel at the time. The friend also took a drink from Sharper and blacked out, waking up in the hotel room’s living room, according to the police report.
According to the report, the friend knocked on Sharper’s bedroom door, prompting him to call out, “Hold on!” The woman who was in the bedroom told police he got off her, which is when she was able to get dressed and leave. She told police that she and her friend hailed a cab outside the hotel.
“Later, the [suspect] texted the [victim] to see if she got home safely,” the report said.
The two other reports detail an alleged incident that occurred on Jan. 15, 2014, when two women told police they had met Sharper at a nightclub.
The women told detectives that Sharper gave them a ride to an after-party at a Hollywood Hills home, after which he invited them to another party. But first, he told them, he “had to go to his hotel room and pick something up,” according to the report.
When the three arrived at Sharper’s hotel room, the women told police that Sharper made them vodka and cranberry shots. The women told police they initially declined, “but Sharper kept asking them to take the shots.”
“The shots didn’t taste like normal vodka shots,” the women told police.
The women told detectives they blacked out within 10 minutes of drinking and woke up the next morning on a pull-out bed in the living room. One of the women said she felt pain in her vagina; the other “couldn’t remember anything.”
The women took a taxi and left the hotel without seeing Sharper, according to the report.
Later that day, the women “decided to get tested because they believe they had been sexually assaulted.”
Less than a month later, Los Angeles County prosecutors filed rape and drug charges against Sharper. The 39-year-old posted bail and was released, but was taken into custody again the following month after New Orleans police issued a warrant for his arrest. An L.A. judge later ordered that he be held without bail.
While behind bars, Sharper was indicted by grand juries in Arizona and Louisiana on various sexual assault and drug charges. The Louisiana charges include aggravated rape, which carries a potential life prison sentence. He also faces federal drug charges in Louisiana.
Sharper’s preliminary hearing on the Los Angeles charges is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.