Former 49ers star Dana Stubblefield sentenced to 15 years to life for rape conviction

Prison term issued after appellate court denied motion for a new trial; guilty verdict reached in July.

SAN JOSE — Former San Francisco 49ers star Dana Stubblefield was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison Thursday for raping a prospective babysitter at his Morgan Hill home five years ago.

The sentence was issued by Judge Arthur Bocanegra 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 Kenneth Rosenfeld and Allen Sawyer, who plan to appeal their client’s conviction.

In July, a jury found Stubblefield guilty of raping, with the threat of a gun, a woman — identified in court as Jane Doe — who had come to his home to interview for a babysitting job on April 9, 2015. Stubblefield was also convicted of forcible oral copulation and false imprisonment. He has been held in the Santa Clara County Main Jail since the verdict.

During the trial, Deputy District Attorney Tim McInerney also called on the testimony of two women who testified to being assaulted by Stubblefield. Their claims were not charged because of issues with statutes of limitation and jurisdiction.

“ ’No’ meant nothing to this defendant. Based on his status, I think he was never held accountable for prior criminal behavior,” McInerney said in a statement Thursday. “Today, he was properly held accountable.”

Stubblefield’s attorneys continue to assert that they were stymied throughout the trial by Bocanegra’s refusal to allow them to present the crux of their defense — their claim that Doe had engaged in paid sex with Stubblefield and that she was not intellectually disabled as portrayed by the prosecution.

After the sentencing Thursday, Sawyer emphasized that the jury rejected two felony charges alleging that Stubblefield exploited a woman who was mentally incapable of providing consent to sex. During trial, they also sought to show that Doe’s proficiency with websites and social-media stood in contradiction to the prosecution’s claims of her intellectual disability.

“We proved it, and the jury found that was not true,” Sawyer said. “That false narrative corrupted this trial from start to finish.”

In September, Bocanegra struck down a motion by the attorneys to disqualify him from presiding over the case, which was followed by the appellate court petition.

The defense attorneys clashed frequently with Bocanegra over the judge’s application of rape shield laws that prohibit a rape victim’s sexual history from being introduced as evidence to discredit them. Sawyer also contends that Stubblefield’s trial rights were compromised by coronavirus-related delays and courtroom measures, which he said created the damaging optics of a large Black man wearing a mask and sitting in isolation while a jury heard testimony and evidence.

“We’re looking forward to putting it in front of an appellate court, and believe the jury would have come to a different conclusion if that evidence came in,” Sawyer said.

Doe testified, backed in part by text messages gathered by Morgan Hill police, that after she and Stubblefield finished an initial interview and she left his house, he texted her, saying he would like to pay her for having come up from Hollister. Doe had said that when she returned, he gave her $80, then locked the front door and carried her into a first-floor bedroom and assaulted her.

Rosenfeld and Sawyer challenged Doe’s honesty during her testimony, disputed the prosecution’s timeline and argued that the reason she returned to the home was to collect money for a paid sexual encounter.

Stubblefield, 49, began his 11-year lineman career in the NFL with the 49ers in 1993 as the league’s defensive rookie of the year, and later won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1997 before leaving the team to play for Washington. He returned to the Bay Area to finish his career, playing with the 49ers in 2000-01 and the Raiders in 2003.

McInerny argued throughout the case that Doe was overpowered and overwhelmed by the much larger Stubblefield, who used his physical stature and celebrity to commit the assault, adding Thursday that the victim “testified with bravery, poise, and grace and allowed the jury to get a true picture of the man.”