SAN DIEGO (AP) – Former NFL player Kellen Winslow II was sentenced Wednesday to 14 years in prison for several rapes and other sexual crimes against five Southern California women, including one who was homeless when she attacked her in 2018.
The 37-year-old son, receiver Kellen Winslow, receiver of the Hall of Fame in San Diego, appeared by video conference at the hearing in the San Diego Superior Court in Vista, a city north of San Diego. He declined to comment before sentencing, saying his lawyers advised him not to speak.
“In the future, I intend to tell my story,” said the former Cleveland Browns star, along with the highest paid end in the NFL.
San Diego County Superior Court Judge Blaine Bowman said Winslow could only be described in “two words and was a sexual predator.”
The judge said he robbed women who were particularly vulnerable, befriending a homeless woman, hitchhiking a 54-year-old hitchhiker and attacking a teenage girl after she went out to a party.
Bowman called them “crazy” crimes. He noted that Winslow continued to plunder women even after his first arrest. He did a naughty act in front of a 77-year-old woman at a gym while hiding his GPS monitoring bracelet with a towel. He also exposed himself to a 57-year-old neighbor who was gardening, despite the fact that he had a bicycle application that offered him the location at the time.
“The vulnerability of the victims was not an accident,” Bowman said. “It was the kind of victim you looked for on your own, because you felt they might not report the crime” or “they won’t be considered credible by jurors.”
The 14-year sentence was the maximum allowed under an agreement. He was convicted of forced rape, rape of an unconscious person, assault with intent to commit rape, indecent exposure and obscene behavior in public.
Four of the women testified on Wednesday, including a victim who asked the prosecutor to read it. They all described the suffering for years after their attacks of fear and emotional trauma.
The woman, who was left homeless and raped in her hometown of Encinitas, a beach community in northern San Diego, was called for a video conference hearing at the San Diego County prosecutor’s office, where she followed the proceedings with another victim.
She said since she was raped that she had problems with raising her head and walking. She is constantly afraid and checks under the beds and in the closets when she stays at her brother’s house.
“I never feel safe inside or outside,” she said. “You have done so much damage to my life.”
Once selected in the first round of the NFL for the Cleveland Browns, Winslow also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New England Patriots and New York Jets. He earned over $ 40 million in his 10 seasons. He was injured in a motorcycle accident and left the NFL in 2013.
“He is someone who was allowed to use his financial privilege and celebrity to escape from prison pending trial, which was when he victimized me,” the 77-year-old woman said on Wednesday. “It shows that this is a defendant who does not learn from his mistakes, who does not show any respect for our laws.”
Winslow’s lawyer, Marc Carlos, said he suffered head injuries due to numerous head injuries while playing football, which can only explain why he “got off the rails”, going from a star athlete to a sexual predator. condemned. He said that his client has taken responsibility and intends to get help.
Winslow was convicted for the first time after a trial in June 2019, when jurors found him guilty of forced rape and two offenses – indecent exposure and an obscene act in public.
The same jurors failed to agree on other charges, including the alleged 2018 rape of the 54-year-old hitchhiker and the 2003 rape of an unconscious, 17-year-old high school student who went to a party with him when he was 19 years. .
Before being tried again, he pleaded guilty to raping the teenager and the hitchhiker’s sexual battery. Those pleas deprived him of the possibility of life in prison.
The father of two children, whose wife filed for divorce after being convicted, had faced up to 18 years in prison for all charges.
But both sides agreed to reduce the battery’s sexual charge to attack with the intent to commit rape last month. This reduced the maximum sentence to 14 years.
Winslow must also register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.