VISTA, Calif. — A California jury that convicted former NFL player Kellen Winslow Jr. of raping a 58-year-old homeless woman was unable to break a deadlock on eight other counts Tuesday and a judge declared a mistrial on those charges.
The San Diego County Superior Court judge earlier denied a defense motion to dismiss the undecided charges involving the alleged rapes of a 54-year-old hitchhiker and an unconscious teen in 2003.
Prosecutors did not immediately say whether they would retry those charges but agreed to return to court Friday to discuss that option and possibly set a new trial date.
After the jury was sent home Tuesday, prosecutor Dan Owens told reporters the majority of the 12 jurors believed Winslow was guilty of raping more than one woman.
“Ten jurors did feel very strongly that he had committed forcible sexual offenses against more than one victim,” he said. “That would lead to a lifetime prison term and that would be another factor that we would consider very strongly in determining how to proceed with the case.”
Winslow, who played for Cleveland, Tampa Bay, New England and the New York Jets, currently faces up to nine years in prison after the jury Monday found him guilty of an attack last year on the homeless woman in his picturesque beach community of Encinitas, north of San Diego.
His attorneys indicated Tuesday that they want him to be sentenced after the case is retried and that they plan to appeal the rape conviction.
Defense lawyer Emily Bahr said Winslow was “shocked by that verdict” as was his family, including his father, former Chargers icon and Hall of Famer Kellen Winslow, who sat behind his son every day of the trial.
“They’re upset of course, disappointed by that outcome but they know that the team is going to move forward and continue to fight the case,” she said.
The jury also found the 35-year-old former tight end guilty of indecent exposure and lewd conduct involving two other women, but jurors found him not guilty of one count of a lewd act.
The jury of eight men and four women told the judge they were hopelessly deadlocked on the other charges after they deliberated for four days.
All five women testified during the trial. Winslow did not take the stand.
Defense attorneys pointed out inconsistencies in the accusers’ testimonies and argued the women invented the allegations to prey on the wealth of Winslow, who reportedly earned over $40 million during his 10 seasons with the NFL.
The five women testified that they didn’t know Winslow was famous when they met him.
Prosecutors said Winslow felt empowered by his fame to abuse the most vulnerable.
The homeless woman in Encinitas, who was 58 at the time, testified that he befriended her and attacked her next to his vehicle after inviting her for a coffee in May 2018. While the jury found him guilty of raping her, they remained deadlocked over a sodomy charge.
If the case is retried, she could be called to testify again, which could mean the next jury could learn of the conviction as it weighs the other rape cases.
A 54-year-old hitchhiker said he drove her to an Encinitas shopping center parking lot and raped her in his Hummer in March 2018.
A 57-year-old woman said he exposed himself to her while she tended to her garden in May of 2018. The jury found him guilty of that charge Monday.
After news of the attacks broke, a woman came forward and said Winslow had raped her when she was a 17-year-old high school student in 2003. He was 19 at the time and had come home from college for the summer.
A 77-year-old woman who went to the same gym as Winslow in the nearby beach community of Carlsbad said he committed lewd acts in front of her while Winslow was free on $2 million bail in February. The jury found him guilty of touching himself in front of the woman while she exercised, but not guilty of committing a lewd act in front of her on a separate occasion in the gym’s hot tub.
Defense lawyers said the sex was consensual and that Winslow had cheated on his wife repeatedly with no-strings-attached sex.
Prosecutors said the crux of the women’s stories hasn’t change and that evidence included traces of Winslow’s DNA on one of the accuser’s pants and GPS locations placing him where the women said the assaults occurred.
