Ex-NFL player Darren Sharper is refused plea bargain for sexually assaulting up to 16 women

The federal judge said the requested nine-year sentence does not ‘reflect the seriousness’ of the alleged assaults

The former NFL player alllegedly used a cocktail of drugs on women with the intent to commit rape (Getty)

A judge has rejected a plea deal for former National Football League player Darren Sharper, saying his nine-year sentence “does not reflect the seriousness” of accusations that he sexually assaulted as many as 16 women.

“This court cannot accept this plea agreement,” US District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo told Mr Sharper in court on Thursday.

He has been accused of using a cocktail of drugs including alprazolam, diazepam and zolpidem with the intent to commit rape.

The judge told lawyers they had until 3 March to decide whether their client would withdraw his guilty plea which he entered in 2015.

Mr Sharper faces charges in four states and has pleaded guilty or no contest in California, Arizona, Nevada and Louisiana. He was sentenced to eight years behind bars in Arizona and is still awaiting sentencing in the other states.

Mr Sharper’s plea deal asked for a nine-year sentence if he were to comply with a list of requirements, including co-operation with authorities in the case against two co-defendants in Louisiana.

Ms Milazzo said that a pre-sentence report by federal authorities and federal sentencing guidelines called for a sentence between 15 and 20 years.

“The defendant ordinarily would face consecutive sentences on each of the charged rapes, so the plea deal offered a significant benefit in addition to the opportunity to serve most of his time federally,” Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor who now is a law professor at Tulane University, told the Leader-Telegram.

“Now Sharper will have to make a decision on whether to go to trial in federal court or plead guilty again and face the unfettered decision of the judge.”

Mr Sharper was a NFL player for 14 years until 2011.