Saints Rookie Sentenced to Six Months in Jail on Sexual Assault Charges
A judge sentenced former Wyoming football player and Saints rookie Carl Granderson to six months in jail Thursday after rejecting the terms of his plea agreement on sexual assault charges.
The defensive end was accused of inappropriately touching two women while they slept at his apartment in 2018. Granderson reached a plea agreement with prosecutors, pleading no contest to lesser charges of sexual battery and unlawful contact. According to reports by the Casper Star-Tribune, the judge presiding over the case rejected the proposed plea deal—which included one year of unsupervised probation and a mental evaluation—and ordered Granderson to begin serving his sentence immediately in the Albany County Detention Center for the count of unlawful contact.
Granderson was originally charged with third-degree sexual assault in addition to one count of sexual battery. The felony assault charge was replaced with misdemeanor unlawful contact as part of the proposed plea deal. The 6'5", 250-pound lineman was also sentenced to one year in jail on the sexual battery charge, which will be suspended with one year of supervised probation once he has completed his six months in jail, per the Star-Tribune.
The Saints said Thursday that they are aware of the latest developments but did not have further comment.
When asked about Granderson during rookie minicamp in May, Saints coach Sean Payton said the team researched Granderson's situation before signing him.
"We felt real comfortable with everything we knew, and so far he’s done a good job here," Payton said, according to the Times-Picayune.
Granderson's victims were given the opportunity to make statements before the judge's sentencing, both saying they were under the impression that Granderson was going to plead guilty to the new charges. They added that they wouldn't have agreed to the deal if they'd known he was going to enter another plea.
