Former San Francisco 49ers football player Dana Stubblefield has been sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for raping a developmentally disabled woman.
According to Mercury News, the sentence was issued by a judge in San Jose after denying a defense motion for a new trial.
Last week, the Sixth District Court of Appeal denied a related petition filed on behalf of Stubblefield by his attorneys.
A jury in July found Stubblefield, 49, guilty of raping the woman with the threat of a gun. He was also convicted of forcible oral copulation and false imprisonment. He has been held in the Santa Clara County Main Jail since the verdict.
A day before the April 2015 assault, Stubblefield contacted the then 31-year-old woman on a baby-sitting website and arranged an interview, prosecutors said.
The Morgan Hill Police Department said the woman’s interview lasted about 20 minutes. She later received a text from Stubblefield saying he wanted to pay her for her time that day, and she went back to the house.
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After raping her, Stubblefield gave her $80 and let her go. But on her way home, the woman immediately went to the police and reported the rape, the report said.
Allen Sawyer, Stubblefield’s attorney, disputes the jury’s finding. “We are as adamant as ever that Mr. Stubblefield is innocent,” he told CNN.
Sawyer believes the victim is not intellectually disabled and says the evidence to prove it was excluded from the trial.
“We proved it, and the jury found that was not true,” Sawyer said. “That false narrative corrupted this trial from start to finish.”