SmashMouth

It was 5:06 a.m. on a Tuesday in September 2013 when sex crimes Det. Derrick Williams caught the call. It came from the hospital. It was a distraught woman. She was saying she had been raped.

She told Williams a familiar story of French Quarter trespass: She’d hit the clubs the night before, she said. Drank a lot. Met a man. Went to his house. And awoke the next morning to find him on top of her, naked. But she told Williams she had never said yes to sex.

Williams typed up a brief report. He labeled the incident a rape. But Case No. I-31494-13 wasn’t quite ordinary. The accuser was a former cheerleader for the New Orleans Saints. And the alleged rapist was Darren Sharper, a hero of the Saints’ 2009 Super Bowl team, former Pro Bowl player and broadcast analyst for the league’s television network.

News of the Sept. 23, 2013 incident quickly shot up the ranks. New Orleans’ police superintendent and top prosecutor were briefed. In the weeks that followed, police records show that Williams gathered evidence. He got a warrant to collect a sample of Sharper’s DNA. It matched a swab taken from the woman’s body. Witnesses told of seeing Sharper with the intoxicated woman at a club, and later at his condo. Video footage confirmed Sharper and the woman had been together.

It wasn’t enough for the district attorney’s office. This was a “heater” — police shorthand for a high profile case. Prosecutors were hesitant to move too quickly on a local football hero with deep pockets and savvy lawyers, according to two individuals with knowledge of the investigation. They held off on an arrest warrant.



“If his name was John Brown, he would have been in jail,” one criminal justice official with knowledge of the case said. “If a woman says, ‘He’s the guy that raped me,’ and you have corroborating evidence to show they were together and she went to the hospital and she can identify him, that guy goes to jail.”

Sharper did not — and continued an unchecked crime spree that ended only with his arrest in Los Angeles last year after sexually assaulting four women in 24 hours. In March, Sharper owned up to his savagery. He agreed to plead guilty or no contest to raping or attempting to rape nine women in four states. The pending deal allows his possible release after serving half of a 20-year sentence — a strikingly light punishment that has drawn widespread criticism.

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SmashMouth

Who's who in the Darren Sharper saga: A rundown of the 12 key figures involved | Saints | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Timeline: Darren Sharper's fall from Saints Super Bowl champion in 2011 to convicted rapist in 2015 | Saints | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Darren Sharper will be eligible for parole in 2024, must undergo intensive sexual counseling, Orleans DA says | Saints | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Beastmode

I hope someday science can explain what causes this mental sickness and find a cure. Sexual counseling is no match for something this devious. He's missing some nuts and bolts up there.

SmashMouth

Darren Sharper looking at 9 more years, lifetime restrictions, Cannizzaro says | NOLA.com

stickman

Agreed. I'm sure that guy had no problem meeting willing women. The fact that he did this tells you he had some sick need to dominate. POS.

darksoul35

My best friend is serving fourteen years for selling crack. I just don't get it.

Rugby Saint II

I just shake my head........he seemed like such a classy guy. I guess you just never know.

iceshack149

I can see his lawyers blaming CTE on this and suing the league soon.

RaginCajun83

my feelings on this start at 0:50 to 1:00 and then again at 1:22 to 1:35, take it away for me Vin


I know some great police officers that would come unglued if they heard about this part of this story

SmashMouth

Sharper has some followers evidently...

'Gang rape' on Florida beach witnessed by hundreds who did nothing, sheriff says | NOLA.com