SAN DIEGO (AP) – Former NFL player Kellen Winslow II was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Wednesday for multiple rape and other sex crimes against five women in Southern California, including one homeless when he attacked her in 2018.
The 37-year-old son of San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame recipient Kellen Winslow appeared via video conference at the San Diego Superior Court hearing in Vista, a city north of San Diego. He declined to comment for his sentence, saying his lawyers had advised him not to speak.
“In the future, I plan to tell my story,” said the former Cleveland Browns star, once the highest-paid tight end in the NFL.
Judge Blaine Bowman of the San Diego County Superior Court said Winslow can only be described in “two words and that’s a sexual predator.”
The judge said he hunted down women who were particularly vulnerable, befriended a homeless woman, picked up a 54-year-old hitchhiker and assaulted a teenager after she passed out at a party.
Bowman called them “brutal” crimes. He noted that even after his first arrest, Winslow continued to hunt women. He performed a lewd act on behalf of a 77-year-old woman in a gym while hiding his ankle bracelet with a towel for GPS monitoring. He also exposed himself to a 57-year-old neighbor who was gardening despite a bicycle app giving his location at the time.
“The vulnerability of the victims was not an accident,” Bowman said. “It was the type of victim you were looking for yourself because you thought they might not file a report” or “wouldn’t be considered credible by the jurors.”
The 14-year sentence was the maximum allowed in a plea deal. He was convicted of violent rape, rape of an unconscious person, assault with intent to commit rape, indecent exposure, and lewd behavior in public.
Four of the women made statements on Wednesday, including one victim that the prosecutor had read out. All described suffering for years after their attacks from fear and emotional trauma.
The woman who was homeless and raped in Winslow’s hometown of Encinitas, a beach community north of San Diego, called before the hearing via a video conference from the San Diego County District Attorney’s office, where she reviewed the proceedings with another victim.
She said she has been struggling to lift her head and walk since her rape. She is constantly scared and looks under the beds and in the closets when she is staying with her brother.
“I never feel safe inside or out,” she said. “You’ve done so much damage to my life.”
Once a first-round NFL draft pick for the Cleveland Browns, Winslow also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New England Patriots, and New York Jets. He’s made more than $ 40 million over his 10 seasons. He was injured in a motorcycle accident and left the NFL in 2013.
“This is someone who has been allowed to use his financial privilege and fame to avoid prison while awaiting trial, and that is 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 shows no respect for our laws.”
Winslow’s attorney Marc Carlos said he suffered head trauma from the many blows to his head while playing football, which may only explain why he “went off the rails” going from a star athlete to a convicted sexual predator. He said his client has accepted responsibility and plans to seek help.
Winslow was first convicted after a trial in June 2019 when jurors found him guilty of forced rape and two felonies: indecent exposure and a lewd act in public.
The same jurors disagreed on other allegations, including the alleged rape of the 54-year-old hitchhiker in 2018 and the 2003 rape of the unconscious 17-year-old high school student who went to a party with him when he was 19. .
Before being tried again on those charges, he pleaded guilty to raping the teen and the hitchhiker’s sexual battery. Those pleas saved him the possibility of a life in prison.
The father of two, whose wife filed for divorce after his conviction, had served up to 18 years in prison on all charges.
But both sides agreed to reduce the sexual battery charge last month to commit sexual assault with intent to commit rape. That reduced the maximum sentence to 14 years.
Winslow must also register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.