SAN DIEGO (AP) – Former NFL player Kellen Winslow II was sentenced Wednesday to 14 years in prison for multiple rapes and other sex crimes against five women in Southern California, including one who became homeless when attacked her in 2018.
The 37-year-old son of Kellen Winslow of the San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame appeared by video conference at the San Diego High Court hearing in Vista, a city north of San Diego. He declined to comment before his sentencing, 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 final in the NFL.
San Diego County Superior Court Judge Blaine Bowman said Winslow can only be described in “two words and that he is a sexual predator.”
The judge said he seized especially vulnerable women, befriended a homeless woman, picked up a 54-year-old hitchhiker and attacked a teenage girl after she disappeared at a party.
Bowman called them “brazen” crimes. He noted that Winslow continued to prey on women even after his first arrest. He performed a lewd act in front of a 77-year-old woman in a gym while hiding his GPS surveillance ankle bracelet with a towel. He was also exposed to a 57-year-old neighbor who was gardening despite having a bike app that gave his location at the time.
“The vulnerability of the victims was not accidental,” Bowman said. “It was the kind of victim you looked for yourself because you felt they might not report the crime” or “they wouldn’t be considered credible by jurors.”
The 14-year sentence was the maximum allowed under a demand agreement. He was convicted of forced rape, rape of an unconscious person, assault with intent to commit rape, indecent exposure, and obscene conduct in public.
Four of the women testified Wednesday, including a victim who had the prosecutor read hers. They all described 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 in Winslow, a beach community in northern San Diego, was summoned to court by video conference from the district attorney’s office. of San Diego County, where he saw proceedings with another victim.
She said that since she was raped she has had trouble lifting her head and walking. She is constantly scared and checks under the beds and closets when she stays at her brother’s house.
“I never feel safe inside or out,” he said. “You’ve done so much damage to my life.”
Once selected for 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 more than $ 40 million during his ten seasons. He was injured in a motorcycle accident and left the NFL in 2013.
“This is a person who has been allowed to use his financial privilege and his celebrity to escape prison while awaiting trial, which is when he victimized me,” the 77-year-old 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 a head injury from the many blows to the head while playing football, which can only explain why he “got off the rails,” going from a star athlete to a convicted sexual predator. He said his client has accepted responsibility and intends to get help.
Winslow was first convicted after a trial in June 2019, when jurors found him guilty of forced rape and two delicate offenses: indecent exposure and obscene act in public.
The jurors themselves did not agree on other charges, including the alleged rape of the 54-year-old hitchhiker in 2018 and the rape of the 17-year-old unconscious gentleman who went to a party with him when he was 19 years old. .
Before being tried again on these charges, he pleaded guilty to raping the teenager and the hitchhiker’s sexual battery. These reasons spared him the chance to live in prison.
The father of two children, whose wife filed for divorce after being convicted, had received up to 18 years in prison for all charges.
But both sides agreed to reduce the battery’s sexual load to attack with 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.