LOS ANGELES - Former professional football star Darren Sharper, who is accused of drugging and raping two women in California, must remain in jail in Los Angeles pending a possible extradition request from Arizona over sexual assault charges in that state, a judge ruled on Monday.
Sharper, who helped the New Orleans Saints win a 2010 Super Bowl title and played for the Minnesota Vikings, faces California charges of drugging four women and raping two of them and is being held without bail in a Los Angeles jail. He also was indicted this month by a grand jury in Arizona on rape and drugging charges involving two more women.
California prosecutors have said in court documents that Louisiana and Nevada were investigating Sharper on sex crime allegations, and police in Miami Beach, Florida, said they too were investigating him. He has not been charged in those states.
“The charges pending out of Arizona are sufficiently serious the court is going to set ... no bail,” said Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Renee Korn.
Prosecutors in Arizona said last week they would not immediately seek to extradite Sharper, 38, to their state, to allow California prosecutors who were the first to charge Sharper to move forward with their case against him.
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But Los Angeles prosecutors said on Monday in court papers that a formal extradition request was expected to be submitted to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Wednesday, and would be processed by her office.
The former defensive back and former analyst for the NFL Network has pleaded not guilty to the California charges.
During the hearing on Monday, he sat behind a glass partition in an orange jump suit and only spoke once when asked about setting a date for his next hearing.
He is due back in court on April 15 for a hearing on the pending extradition request from Arizona.
