Former NFL player Kellen Winslow Jr. pleaded guilty Monday to raping an unconscious teen and sexual battery involving a 54-year-old woman.
Via ESPN:
Winslow initially hesitated and seemed to agonize over his decision.
“I’m sorry. I’m just not thinking very clearly,” Winslow told the judge at one point.
He asked the judge for more time before he finally entered the guilty pleas moments before he was about to be retried on six felonies including kidnapping, sodomy, forced oral copulation and two charges of forcible rape in San Diego County Superior Court that could have sent him to prison for life if he was convicted.
In exchange for his plea, the court agreed to sentence him to between 12 and 18 years in prison.
His deal spared him the possibility of life in prison.
It was back in June when a jury found him guilty of raping a homeless woman in Encinitas, north of San Diego as well as convicting him of two misdemeanors — indecent exposure and a lewd act in public — involving two other women.
But that jury failed to agree on other charges, including the alleged rape of the hitchhiker and the rape of the unconscious teen in 2003. Under the plea deal, the attack on the hitchhiker was reduced to sexual battery.
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The 36-year-old former tight end played for Cleveland, Tampa Bay, New England and the New York Jets and earned more than $40 million over 10 seasons in the NFL.
His father, who is Chargers Hall of Fame receiver Kellen Winslow, was present throughout the first trial.
