Federal judge orders ex-NFL player Darren Sharper be moved to Louisiana

A federal judge has ordered Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials to turn over former-NFL star Darren Sharper to U.S. Marshals in Louisiana, where he’s accused of drugging women with the intent of raping them.

The judge’s ruling Monday marks the latest development in multiple sexual assault investigations against the former New Orleans Saints safety, who is also accused of drugging and attacking women he met at a West Hollywood club in 2013.

Sharper, 39, has been behind bars in Los Angeles since February.

The order signed this week by Judge Michael B. North of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana asks that Sharper be sent from Men’s Central Jail in L.A. to New Orleans in time for his Feb. 23 arraignment. Jane Robison of the L.A. County district attorney’s office said the recent order won’t affect the case in Los Angeles.

“He will remain in Los Angeles until our case is resolved,” she said.

The onetime Super Bowl champion was indicted by an Arizona grand jury in March and charged in the federal case in December. He faces three counts of conspiring to distribute anxiety and sleeping medicines known to be used as “date rape” drugs with the intent to commit rape.

Sharper’s attorney, Blair Berk, declined to comment.

If Sharper is sent to Louisiana, the recent motion says the former football player would eventually be released back into the custody of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

According to court documents filed in Los Angeles, Sharper met two women at a club in West Hollywood and invited them to an after-party. On the way there, Sharper told the women he needed to drop by his hotel to pick something up and invited them up to his suite. He gave them coffee-flavored shots, the documents show, and the women said they “blacked out” within minutes.

He has pleaded not guilty.

For more news from the Los Angeles County criminal courts, follow @marisagerber