What Makeup Millionaire Went To Prison For Using The Date Rape Drug

• The sleep drug zolpidem%2C also known by its brand name Ambien%2C has been used in several appointment rapes in recent years
• Many ex-NFL players utilize the drug to help with insomnia and say they accept been using it for years
• The company that makes Ambien said it is supposed to be used only on a brusque-term basis

In January 2012, Darren Sharper filed a worker's bounty claim in California that described several health problems he suffered during 14 seasons as a player in the NFL. Along with his knee joint, hamstring, shoulder and hip, he listed "head, slumber."

To assist his slumber bug, the former NFL star had a prescription for Ambien, the make-name version of zolpidem, a sedative used to treat insomnia. Sharper eventually became a frequent user, going through lxx pills in 65 days through mid-January of 2014, a prosecutor in Los Angeles said.

Investigators say he also slipped the drug into women'due south drinks, rendering them unconscious so he could rape them later on a night of partying. On Jan. 17, Sharper had twenty Ambien pills in his possession when Los Angeles police arrested him on suspicion of 2 rapes there in October and January. Sharper since has been indicted for two more rapes in Arizona and is the subject field of investigations in three other states, a stunning turn in the life of a well-known former player who had proudly touted his work at women's advancement events and was working as an analyst for the NFL Network at the time of his abort.

Sharper, 38, has pleaded non guilty and remains jailed, pending a hearing Apr xv. The case against him reveals a collision of two worlds, according to a United states of america TODAY Sports review of courtroom records, police reports, workers bounty claims and interviews with contained experts and other onetime players. In one way Sharper is among a growing number of former football players who suffered head injuries on the field and later turned to zolpidem, sometimes to the point of addiction, to help with sleeplessness. Zolpidem is commonplace in the USA, ranking 15th on the listing of almost-dispensed medications in 2012 with 43.eight million prescriptions, according to IMS Health.

Constabulary say information technology also is the drug Sharper used to casualty on women, with zolpidem known as one of the virtually effective date-rape drugs since Rohypnol — "roofies" — was outlawed in 1996.

"Ambien has replaced roofies as the rape drug of choice," said Todd Emanuel, a California attorney who has worked on like rape cases. "It is very piece of cake to secrete in liquid similar wine, and it has a curt half-life, so it is usually difficult to detect."

Zolpidem generally is not detectable in alleged victims through blood or urine tests more than a day or 2 later a single exposure, though that can vary depending on the person, the dosage and testing limits, said George Behonick, a toxicologist at the AIT Laboratories in Indiana, whose clients include police force enforcement. Pilus testing can detect information technology longer only that volition be hard if there's only been i small dosage, Behonick said.

"It is designed to make people go to sleep and quickly exit the torso," Behonick said. "That's the whole idea behind it."

The short testing window, as well every bit the drug'due south legality, complicate the criminal cases.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles affirm that the narratives recounted past Sharper's alleged victims across the country show an undeniable pattern, fifty-fifty if the women cannot call back much of what happened because of the amnesia-like event of the drug. While Sharper remains under investigation for declared rapes in Louisiana, Nevada and Florida, he has been charged only in Arizona and California — cases in which prosecutors have witnesses to bolster victims' accounts.

Los Angeles prosecutor Stacy Okun-Wiese told the judge presiding over Sharper'south case that she had listened to recorded statements from witnesses and said "information technology's like listening to the aforementioned person over and over again."

"He is out there preying on women between the ages of 20 and 23 years quondam. He hangs out with them at clubs. He takes them dorsum, and it'due south the same story in every single case," Okun-Wiese said.

Sharper faces more than 30 years in prison on the charges in California, which volition endeavor its case before Arizona's. His attorneys say he is innocent and annotation the cases involve women who were out drinking with him.

They also counter in court documents that Sharper has a valid prescription for Ambien but assert that "no Ambien was detected in any of the alleged victims." Whatever sexual contact that occurred was consensual, said Leonard Levine, one of Sharper's attorneys.

DRUGGED, ASSAULTED

In 2012, a human in Kansas City, Mo., was sentenced to 245 years in federal prison for drugging and molesting 13 children later he admitted to spiking their ice cream and soft drinks with sleeping pills, including zolpidem. Last year, a male nurse in Hawaii was sentenced to two years in prison afterwards being accused of using the drug to spike the beer of a Declension Guard crewman and and so sexually assail him.

In 2011, a jury in a civil trial awarded a woman $405,000 in damages after she said her married man, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, sexually assaulted her after spiking her wine with zolpidem.

For a number of hours after taking the drug, "you might not recall some or all of what happens," said David Spiegel, a doctor and professor at Stanford University. "You are less likely to call up details of what happened."

Rohypnol had a like effect and even became known equally the "forget pill." It has been used to care for insomnia in other countries, including Mexico, only it was never approved for medical utilize in the USA. In 1996 it was banned for importation afterward it became known as an effective tool for date rapists, who frequently slipped it into the drinks of their victims to knock them unconscious. GHB was another drug used to similar effect, but it was banned in the USA in 1990 earlier being canonical in 2002 to treat a rare form of narcolepsy.

But zolpidem is a prevalent prescription drug and therefore easier to obtain for illegal use. Ambien was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1992 and soon became a pop remedy for insomniacs, fifty-fifty though its official guidelines have changed in response to reports of adverse effects on users.

FDA guidelines warn zolpidem users that they might "get out of bed while not existence fully awake and practise an activity that you practise not know you are doing. The next morning you may not remember that you did anything during the night."

"Yous have a higher risk for doing these activities if you drink alcohol or take other medicines that make you sleepy with Ambien," the guidelines country. "Reported activities include: driving a car, making and eating food, talking on the phone, having sexual practice."

Last year, the FDA notified manufacturers that the recommended zolpidem dosage should be cutting in half for women, who generally metabolize the drug more than slowly than men and might feel more than pronounced side effects. From 2005 to 2010, the number of female person visits to the emergency room involving zolpidem increased from 3,527 to 13,130 — double the amount for men, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

In a argument, Ambien manufacturer Sanofi said, "We speak with i voice with the FDA on Ambien'due south indications." The statement noted that FDA's Medication Guide approves of Ambien for "short-term treatment of a slumber trouble called insomnia (problem falling comatose)" and that Ambien "is a federally controlled substance because it can be abused or lead to dependence."

The visitor said "short-term is defined equally iii to four consecutive weeks."

Long-term side effects can include withdrawal agitation, sleep interruption, depression, poor height functioning and focal amnesia, Spiegel said.

"People do become habituated to it," he said. "They do get dependent on it, so you get kind of a rebound effect when you try to stop."

Sharper was far from the offset quondam NFL thespian to endeavor zolpidem to cope with insomnia. Phil Olsen, 65, a erstwhile lineman for the Los Angeles Rams, estimates he'due south been taking the drug for at least seven years.

"If I don't become my prescription refilled, or if I'm traveling and I forget to bring it, I have a real hard fourth dimension going to sleep without it," Olsen said. "I call back you practise develop a dependency on it."

George Visger, 55, a onetime lineman with the San Francisco 49ers, said he has had multiple brain surgeries that he said were necessary because of football-related injuries. He now runs a brain-injury consulting business and said zolpidem use is common among one-time players because "the slumber issue is huge for us."

Visger said he's been taking the drug, off and on, for several years. Sometimes he'south taken one pill at nighttime then another ane a few hours later on if he still has trouble sleeping.

To Visger, Sharper's rate of use in recent months doesn't seem strange. "Seventy (pills) in 65 days would be normal," Visger said.

TOUGH TO PROVE

To a sexual predator, zolpidem holds entreatment: Non only can the drug be possessed legally with a prescription, it can knock a adult female unconscious and leave her unable to know or recall what happened.

"The perpetrator has two things going for him to start off with," Emanuel said. "One is the half-life of the drug (which makes it hard to detect after a day or two), and the other is there are no eyewitnesses."

That's what distinguishes the cases in which Sharper has been charged. In one of the Los Angeles incidents, Sharper allegedly invited 2 women he was out with October. 30 to his hotel room, where he spiked their drinks. Both women passed out, simply one of them woke upward naked with Sharper raping her. The other adult female as well woke upwardly and "interrupted his actions," according to court documents filed past prosecutors.

In Arizona, where a g jury indicted Sharper on felony date-rape charges, Sharper allegedly drugged three women in a Tempe apartment. I woman said she went to the bathroom because she felt ill and became alarmed when she saw Sharper naked on top of a second woman, a constabulary report said.

A 3rd woman said she later woke up naked from the waist downward and had no memory of how her wearable was removed. When the woman confronted Sharper about information technology, the constabulary written report quotes Sharper every bit responding, "I don't really remember. I estimate I could accept done that. I'm really sorry." The police report said the adult female "was not sure ... she wanted to aid in prosecution."

Police force in Tempe besides said that testing revealed the presence of zolpidem in a cup Sharper used to give drinks to the women. Becaiuse zolpidem generally comes in pill form, it would demand to be ground into a powder to dissolve apace in a drink.

Sharper's attorneys attributed the examination consequence to his prescription. "The Ambien residue establish in one cup in one of the cases is entirely consistent with Mr. Sharper'due south lawful use of Ambien," they wrote in court records.

Emanuel best-selling the difficulty of proving cases in which victims are drugged. In the example of the adult female who said her husband drugged her with it, the woman "really caught him putting a powder into a drinking glass of wine," said Emanuel, who represented the adult female. "I think in that location needs to be a lot more awareness of this as a appointment-rape drug. I'thou getting calls from wives saying, 'My married man did it.'"

Follow Brent Schrotenboer on Twitter @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/03/26/darren-sharper-ambien-zolpidem-insomnia-date-rape-case/6930621/

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