It is a particularly awful crime in consideration of her health

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Former 49er Dana Stubblefield’s alleged rape victim takes the stand

Bay Area News Group Former Niners defensive tackle Dana Stubblefield in 2008
By TRACEY KAPLAN | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: November 29, 2017 at 8:55 a.m. | UPDATED: November 30, 2017 at 12:36 p.m.
MORGAN HILL — In halting sentences, a woman prosecutors called “intellectually disabled” described in court Wednesday how former football star Dana Stubblefield allegedly raped her when she went to his home seeking babysitting work.

“I was so scared,” the woman testified at a preliminary hearing in Santa Clara County Superior Court, describing how he picked her up and put her on a bed. “I told him, let me go, I don’t want sex, I don’t want no money. I told him no, many times.”

Prosecutors in May 2016 charged Stubblefield, 46, a defensive tackle who played for the San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders, with raping the woman on April 9, 2015, at his Morgan Hill home where she had gone to interview for the babysitting job.

Stubblefield has pleaded not guilty and publicly denied the five felony charges and gun enhancement that prosecutors say could lead to life in prison if he is convicted: forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, rape and oral copulation of a person incapable of consent, and false imprisonment. However, he would face only eight years in state prison if he is not convicted of using a gun to intimidate the woman.

During a news conference at his church last year, he said he is “completely innocent of all these allegations” and that although he is “not a perfect man,” he vehemently denied raping the woman. His attorneys said the sex was consensual.

Stubblefield is in court this week for a preliminary hearing where Judge Paul R. Bernal will decide whether the evidence is sufficient to warrant a trial on the charges. The hearing is set to continue Dec. 14.

Much of the questioning Wednesday focused on the extent of the woman’s disability and the degree to which it might impair her ability to consent to sex.

The prosecution suggested Stubblefield was attracted by her online photo, showing her long dark hair and form-fitting T-shirt and pants. But prosecutors also say the ad hinted at her intellectual disability. She was 32 at the time, and claimed to have been providing child care for 29 years.

Prosecutors said she has an IQ of 70, was in special education throughout school and was at a 4th-grade level when she received a certificate of completion from high school. Her family had received Social Security disability payments for her being “intellectually disabled,” and she was a client of Hope Services, which helps the developmentally disabled find work.

However, prosecutor Tim McInerny is pursuing a two-track strategy. If Stubblefield is held over on all the charges and a jurors decide she was capable of consent, they could still convict Stubblefield on rape charges. But the prosecutor believes she was incapable.

“A person with an IQ of 70 who is capable of consenting under peaceful circumstances can be unable to in highly stressful situations,” McInerny said.

Dana Stubblefield, 45, a former 49ers player, was charged on May 2, 2016 with five felony counts related to the reported sexual assault in April, 2015 of a developmentally delayed woman who was interviewing for a job as a nanny at his Morgan Hill home.
Dana Stubblefield
The defense team, led by Sacramento lawyer Ken Rosenfeld, contends she isn’t disabled to the point of being unable to consent to sex. She has a California driver’s license with no restrictions, and has held several jobs, including at Safeway and delivering restaurant take-out for DoorDash. They also noted that the prosecution declined to use a report during the preliminary hearing from an expert who found she was capable of consent.

The woman testified Wednesday that Stubblefield sought her out through the online childcare service Sittercity.com, and that she thought until she met him that he was a woman because of his first name. She said that after they finished the initial interview and she left his house, he texted her, saying he would like to pay her for having come up from Hollister. When she returned, she said, he gave her $80, then locked the front door and walked her into a first-floor bedroom.

She said Stubblefield threatened her with “a small, black gun” and pulled her clothes down, and described the encounter as “nasty.” She is 5’3″ and slim. He is 6’2″ and more than 290 pounds.

“I said I want to go,” said the woman, who testified in short, choppy sentences. “He said I kill you. He a bad man.”

She said she went straight to the police afterward.

The defense contends she was suffers only from a speech impediment. They claim she was desperate for money and had conducted computer searches related to being paid for sex prior to meeting Stubblefield.

“We believe she was to be paid for sex,” defense attorney Allen Sawyer said outside court. “I also believe there was no gun.”

They also said the woman’s brother and former stepfather will testify she is not disabled. They added she had more than four boyfriends, is sexually active and was capable enough to have filed and represented herself in a small-claims case.

The rape allegations are the latest in a string of legal woes for the former NFL star.

Stubblefield admitted to police he kicked his girlfriend while he was playing for the 49ers 20 years ago. He was arrested in 2000 on charges of assaulting his wife.

In 2008, Stubblefield was caught in the Balco scandal, pleaded guilty to a felony and was sentenced to probation for lying to federal agents about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

A year later, a former fiancee obtained a restraining order against him, calling him “violent and unpredictable,” claiming he tried to knock her off her bicycle with his car, and that in phone calls he “threatened me with violence and death.” In 2010, Stubblefield was sentenced to 90 days in jail for stealing her mail, including her unemployment checks.

Earlier this week, a woman tearfully testified that Stubblefield sexually assaulted her in the backroom of a bar/restaurant in Capitola in 1996 after she asked for his autograph and he led her there. The woman, who never reported the incident to police, said Stubblefield had pinned her down on the ground and had his hands up her skirt and shirt when a busboy came in the room, at which point he stopped, cursed her and went back to the bar.