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Former NFL star Darren Sharper pleads 'no contest' to drug and rape charges in Los Angeles, California, USA on Monday (23rd March).

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Former NFL star Darren Sharper has pleaded 'no contest' to drug and rape charges in Los Angeles.

Earlier, he pleaded guilty by video link to a sexual assault in Arizona and was sentenced to nine years in federal prison.

In the Los Angeles case, Sharper will have to serve 50 per cent of a 20-year sentence, and with credit for time served it will come down to about nine years, his attorney has said.

The sentences will be served concurrently in federal prison under the agreement.

In the Arizona case, Sharper admitted sexually assaulting one woman and trying to attack another in suburban Phoenix in 2013.

Sharper appeared in a Phoenix courtroom by video-conferencing from Los Angeles, where he has been jailed since February 2014 after initially pleading not guilty to drugging and raping two women there in 2013.

Similar hearings will follow in Las Vegas this week and in New Orleans in the next month. In each state, he's accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women when they were unconscious or otherwise unable to resist or consent.