Two Former Sooners Get 10 Years for Rape

Former Oklahoma football players Nigel Clay and Bernard Hall were sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $10,000 in fines for raping an Oklahoma City woman in the athletic dormitory last Jan. 21.

Clay, of Fontana, and Hall, of Detroit, were convicted by a jury last week.

Both men waived their right to wait 10 days before starting their sentences and were returned to the custody of the Cleveland County sheriff’s department.

Clay’s attorney, Joel Barr, said a notice of appeal would be filed within the 10-day limit.

Hall’s attorney, Fred Shaeffer, had asked District Judge Preston Trimble to sentence his client to the minimum punishment of five years in prison. But Trimble decided to follow the recommendation of the jury.

In requesting the minimum sentence, Shaeffer said he knew it was Trimble’s policy not to vary from the jury’s recommendation. But he asked him to consider facts that he said the jury did not know.

Shaeffer said some witnesses were more involved in the rape than they admitted. And he said there were no aggravating circumstances--no weapons were involved and the woman was not beaten.

Another former Sooner, Glen Bell of Muskogee, Okla., was acquitted of the same charge.