Rapists Never Retire
“I had a teammate whose motto was ‘If she ain’t freakin’, we ain’t speakin,’ which meant: I don’t even want to talk to you if you’re not talking about going back to the hotel,” former NFL quarterback Don McPherson said in an exclusive interview.
After quarterbacking for both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Houston Oilers in the late 1980s, McPherson was hired by the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Boston. There he directed Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP), a program that uses male athletes to train college-and high-school-age young men in how to reduce abusive treatment of women.
McPherson said that NFL players often encounter groupies during their careers, and as a result sometimes have difficulty discerning which women are coming on to them for sex and which ones aren’t. “If she’s coming on strong and knows something about the team that’s one thing,” McPherson said, in explaining the drill that players run through their mind when meeting women for the first time. “Or she could be just a big fan who happens to think that you’re a nice person. But some players won’t think that because they’re dogs. A dog is just like the animal, it indiscriminately will hump anything that slows down long enough for you to back up to it. I shouldn’t say this, but when you’re someone who has a lot of money and commands a lot of respect, you usually don’t have to do anything. You can, one way or the other, find your own.”
Evidence has shown that NFL players, like other pro athletes, may get away with taking sexual liberties during their playing days. But what happens to those NFL players whose sexual aggression, whether criminal or consensual, goes unchecked throughout their NFL careers? In other words, how do players like those referred to by McPherson as “dogs” cope when they are no longer able to find sex?
After examining ten cases of ex-NFL players charged with a sex crime, the authors chose two players, running back Keith Henderson (San Francisco 1989–92, Minnesota 1992–93) and cornerback Lewis Billups (Cincinnati 1986–91, Green Bay 1992) for illustration here. In addition to interviewing law enforcement authorities and players, the authors relied heavily on court documents and police reports for this chapter.
As the evidence will show, both Henderson and Billups were notorious for being sexually active and both faced allegations of abuse by women during their careers. Neither player, however, was ever convicted for any sex crime while playing in the NFL. The immunity afforded professional athletes is nice, while it lasts. Retirement—at least for these two players—brought on a different story altogether. Both committed rape within a month of leaving the NFL, and both continued on a spree of attacks on women that landed both Henderson and Billups in prison.
In early 1993, Sally Michaels* was waitressing at Puzzles, a Minneapolis bar located in the Mall of America, when she first met six-foot-one, 240-pound Keith Henderson. A fullback on the Vikings, Henderson frequented the bar often and enjoyed a reputation as “friendly” among the waitresses and bartenders. On September 26, 1993, Henderson, who had been released by the Vikings four weeks earlier, asked Michaels for a ride home after her shift. She hesitated but ultimately agreed after receiving assurances from her colleagues.
At 12:30 A.M. the pair left Puzzles and soon arrived at Henderson’s apartment, which he shared with a male roommate. While Michaels sat talking briefly with Henderson in her car parked in front of his apartment complex, security guards asked the two to either park or leave. When Henderson invited Michaels inside so they could continue their conversation, she agreed, later telling police that she did so out of “politeness.”
Once inside, Henderson introduced Michaels to his roommate, Kevin Johnson, before briefly retreating to a room in the back of the apartment. Moments later Henderson called for Michaels to come back where he was. “Why?” she asked.
“Just come in here,” Henderson said in a friendly tone.
Michaels was surprised to reach the end of the hallway and discover that Henderson had been calling to her from the bathroom. His shirt was unbuttoned, and his facial expression was changed. Not sure what to say, Michaels stood speechless. Henderson suddenly grabbed her by the hips, propped her up on the counter, shut the bathroom door, and flipped off the light. “This is weird,” Michaels said nervously.
As Henderson started groping her breasts, Michaels’s hand fumbled in the dark for the light switch. By the time she found it, Henderson was pulling her underwear down. “No,” she said, flipping on the switch. “I really have to go now.”
Henderson ignored her pleas, while dropping his underwear. When Michaels refused Henderson’s directive to place her hand on his penis, he forced her hand down to his crotch. With Michaels trying desperately to break free, he quickly spun her around and began forcing her legs apart from behind.
“No, no,” she begged, her panties now being tugged down and Henderson’s massive hands clamped tightly on her arms. Standing up, her face and chest pressed up against the bathroom wall, Michaels sobbed quietly as Henderson forcibly penetrated her vagina from behind. Despite Michaels’s tears, Henderson remained inside her until he ejaculated. He then withdrew quickly and pulled up his pants.
Before pulling up her underwear, Michaels wiped the semen off the inside of her legs. Seemingly oblivious to the physical pain he caused, Henderson then followed Michaels out to her car and said that he would call the following day. “He acted as if nothing had happened,” Michaels later told investigators.
Initially, she did not go to the hospital or report the incident to the police. Instead, she chose only to confide in a few trusted friends. That all changed when Michaels learned that she was pregnant.
Not wanting to believe the worst, she tried to convince herself that she was not carrying Keith Henderson’s child. After all, she had sexual intercourse with her boyfriend eight days before being raped by Henderson. Her boyfriend could be the father. There was one problem, however: prior to the single sexual encounter with her boyfriend, Michaels had been a virgin. In other words, there was only a fifty-fifty chance that her boyfriend, rather than Henderson, had impregnated her.
Michaels finally told her boyfriend, who then underwent blood tests, which confirmed that he was not the father. On March 4, 1994, Michaels, by then six months’ pregnant, faced the horrible truth and reported Henderson to the Eden Prairie police.
Detective Jim Lindgren was assigned the task of locating and questioning Henderson. According to police reports, when Lindgren showed up at the running back’s last known address— apartment no. 5 at 1601 East 80th Street in Bloomington—he encountered a man who said that Henderson had previously moved out because he was wanted by the law.
Lindgren was unaware that Henderson was under investigation by the Hennepin County prosecutor’s office for another rape that he committed on October 6, 1993, just one week after he had raped Michaels.
According to police reports and investigation summaries obtained by the authors through a public records request, on November 1, 1993, Sergeant John Billington of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Sex Crimes Unit was sitting in his office when seventeen-year-old Mandy Sims* walked in and reported that she had been raped one month earlier. Sims was one of a number of teenage girls who had been hired to appear as extras in the filming of the movie Little Big League, which was being shot at the Metrodome. On October 4, while on the set, Sims was approached by a man who introduced himself as Keith Henderson, an NFL running back. He had actually been cut by the Vikings a month earlier and was trying to catch on with another team. In need of work in the meantime, Henderson took a job on the movie set as an extra.
For three consecutive days, Henderson engaged Sims and her friend in friendly conversation. After filming concluded on October 6, Henderson offered to drive the two teens from the movie set to a nearby parking garage a couple blocks away where all movie employees were asked to park their vehicles during filming each day. Sims climbed into the front seat of Henderson’s white, two-door sports car, while her friend got in the back.
When they reached the garage, Henderson directed Sims’s friend to go up and retrieve the girls’ vehicle from the third level because he wanted to talk privately with Sims. As soon as she was out of sight, Henderson leaned over and kissed Sims. “Take out my dick,” he then instructed her. Stunned and embarrassed, Sims refused. Henderson then undid his pants, exposed himself, and said, “Kiss it.”
“No,” Sims repeated as she quickly opened the door and jumped out of the car. Before she could reach the door to the parking garage stairwell, Henderson caught up to her. “What’s wrong,” he demanded, his penis still exposed.
“I’m not like that,” said Sims.
“Yeah, sure,” Henderson said mockingly, as he cornered her in the stairwell. Unable to escape, Sims felt Henderson force his hands underneath her underwear. “Just let me touch it,” he said.
“No,” she pleaded, pushing in vain against his thick chest.
Henderson’s attack came to an abrupt halt when he heard Sims’s friend drive up in front of the stairwell. Sims told the sex crimes detectives that Henderson’s fingers were inside her vagina for approximately ten seconds, during which time his penis remained exposed. She also told them that she noticed a video surveillance camera was mounted in the top corner of the stairwell.
After taking Sims’s statement, Sergeant Billington contacted the production office for Castle Rock Films. The movie company had no address or home telephone number on file for Henderson, only a pager number. Billington later dialed 1-800-324-3333 and entered Henderson’s PIN No. 94740. When Henderson returned the page, Billington identified himself and said that he was investigating allegations of sexual impropriety made against Henderson by a woman. With Billington unwilling to give more detail over the telephone, on November 30, Henderson went to the Minneapolis Police Department to learn who was accusing him. He did not bring an attorney.
The following excerpts are taken from Sergeant Billington’s summary of his interview with Keith Henderson:
“I asked Henderson to tell us why he wouldn’t do anything like this [commit a sexual assault], and he said because he has a lot of women.
“I asked Henderson if he ever had any sexual contact. . . whatsoever with Sims and he said no.
“I then explained to Henderson that I wasn’t sure if he was aware of this, but there was a camera in the hallway of the parking ramp where he was with Sims. I told him that we had a copy of that tape, and that it was being enhanced at the FBI offices in Washington, D.C., and that the tape would be coming back very soon. … I then asked Henderson if there would be any reason why he would be on that tape in the hallway.
“Henderson said it could be him.
“I told Henderson I looked at the tape, and I said that the big guy in the tape sure looked like him, and that it almost looked as though his penis was out.
“Henderson said that his penis was out, but said that his hand was not inside her pants, but just near her belly button.”
Billington, a seasoned investigator who had handled approximately 400 rape cases during his career, then appealed to Henderson’s NFL-size ego. He talked about the way women pursue professional athletes for sexual purposes, and how it must get difficult to weed out the ones looking for sex and the ones who were just being friendly. Billington then asked Henderson if mixed signals may have been behind the incident with Sims.
“Something like that,” said Henderson.
“I then asked Henderson how long he had his hands in Sims’s pants, and he admitted to having his fingers in her vagina for about 10 seconds. I asked Henderson how many times Sims told him no, and he said twice.”
Unaware that he had just admitted to committing a felony sexual assault, Henderson then agreed to give a more formal statement while the police ran a tape recorder. The following portion of the transcript picks up at the point in the interview where Sergeant Billington is asking Henderson what took place after he and Sims exited the car:
Q: What happened then?
A: Well, I opened the door [to the parking garage stairwell], she walked in, and I walked in behind her. I think I reached over to kiss her, and by then I think I may have took my penis out and she wanted to touch it, or whatever.
Q: So you took your penis out of your pants?
A: Yes.
Q: What happened then?
A: Um, I reached over to touch her, around her stomach and I don’t know if she pushed me or what… I was just basically trying to get her close to me.
Q: But she did push you away, didn’t she?
A: Yes.
Q: What was she saying to you when she was pushing you away?
A: Well, she was sayin’ no, and laughin’ at the same time, so I didn’t really, I guess mixed emotions.
Q: So are you saying that she said no to you, but you didn’t think she meant no?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you put your hand down her pants?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you stick your fingers into her vagina?
A: Well, the edge of it.
Q: Before, you told me that you put your fingers in her vagina for about 10 seconds, is that about right?
A: Yes.
Q: What happened then?
A: Well, then she said no again, then I realized she meant no, so I stopped. … When she said it the second time, like, she wasn’t really smilin’ like she was the first time, so I stopped.
On February 9, 1994, the Hennepin County prosecuting attorney swore out a warrant for the arrest of Keith Pernell Henderson for committing criminal sexual conduct in the third degree against a juvenile, a felony carrying a fifteen-year prison sentence. On May 10, 1994, a second criminal complaint was filed by the Hennepin County prosecuting attorney, this one charging Henderson for criminal sexual conduct in the first degree for the assault on Sally Michaels. This crime carried a potential thirty-year prison term.
One week later, before Henderson was in custody, on May 19 Bloomington police received a 911 emergency call reporting a rape. Officer Michael Taylor was dispatched to a Mobil gas station located at 7920 France Avenue, where the call had been placed from a cellular phone. When Officer Taylor arrived, he found Dawn Brown* and her brother, who had placed the 911 call. The brother informed Officer Taylor that his sister had called him from a pay phone at the Mobil station minutes earlier, saying she needed help. He told Officer Taylor that when he reached the Mobil station he found his sister in a state of hysteria, and she told him that she had just been raped.
Shortly after Officer Taylor arrived at the scene, Brown was taken to nearby Fairview Southdale Hospital where a sexual assault exam was performed. Brown later told Bloomington police that her attacker’s name was Keith Henderson. She described him as a former Vikings football player. And she said that she often ran into him at the Cattle Company, a popular bar located across the parking lot from the Mobil station where he and other Vikings players were regulars.
According to police reports, Henderson got into a verbal altercation with a man who was dancing with Brown. When Brown left the bar to call her brother for a ride home, Henderson followed her outside. Angry and demanding to know where she was going, Henderson abruptly grabbed Brown and dragged her into the parking lot behind the bar. He then spun her around so that she was facing the back of the building, removed her pants, and raped her from behind. Brown told authorities that “she had to hold onto the brick wall with her hands to prevent her head from being smashed against the wall.”
“Please stop,” Brown cried, according to her police statement.
Saying nothing, Henderson continued the assault until he ejaculated inside her. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he then told Brown, echoing what he said to Sally Michaels after raping her from behind.
The report almost sounded too brazen to be true. However, the Bloomington police quickly discovered the two outstanding arrest warrants issued against Henderson in the other rape cases. And on May 26, the Hennepin County prosecutor added a third charge against Henderson, this one for criminal sexual conduct in the third degree. Later that day, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department finally arrested and booked Henderson. On the booking sheet, Henderson’s occupation was listed as “football player.” Under employer, it read “unemployed.” His bond was set at $235,000.
On February 6, 1995, Henderson entered pleas of guilty in all three cases. As part of the agreement, the state agreed to reduce each charge to a fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. Henderson was sentenced on April 10, 1995, to six months in jail, placed on probation for ten years, ordered to attend sex offender treatment, and required to register as a convicted sex offender in the state of Minnesota. All three victims were present in court at the sentencing hearing.
So how did Keith Henderson descend to the point where women were seen purely as sexual prey? Henderson’s own criminal defense attorney offered his view in an interview with the authors. “My take on Keith,” said Robert Miller, who has defended a number of accused sex offenders, “is that he started out as a superstar in high school, then he went to college as an All-American. He was somewhat of a hero all the way through. As a result, you lose perspective in the normal social setting with women because they come up to you all the time. They seek these athletes out. After a while, the players change and act differently toward women. I think it’s difficult in Keith’s position to react with women as the average man would.”
“Professional athletes are people who have done a lot to deny their true feelings because to be a pro athlete you have to deny physical pain, emotional pain, and overcome adversity,” explained quarterback McPherson. “There are a lot of things that you are in denial over. When it comes to women and sex, some players may be at a point where they say, ‘Well, she probably doesn’t want to, but I’m so good she’s going to love this.’ Because that is what you tell yourself. You lie to yourself about how good you are in what you do on the field. You have to. Because the minute you doubt yourself, you’re done as a player. You have to pump yourself up so that you can’t be beat, and then you go in with confidence. When you talk about sex as casual sex, as a recreation or as conquest, why would your attitude be any different when you approach it in that way? It is very congruent with how players live in so many other ways.”
The authors found no record of Henderson ever being convicted of a sex crime as a player. Yet, in examining the police files in the Henderson cases in Minnesota, the authors discovered an inconspicuous, one-page affidavit dated May 6, 1994. It was sworn out to the Bloomington police by a woman whose name was expunged from the record. In her affidavit, the woman stated that in December 1992 she had been “forced by Henderson to perform oral sex and then he forced intercourse on her.” The woman, a Minnesota native, was living out of state when she learned of the pending criminal allegations against Henderson. She agreed to fly to Minnesota and tell her experience to the police in hopes of assisting in the prosecution. In order to protect her privacy, the police removed her name from the affidavit.
Marilyn Scofield* agreed to be interviewed for this book on condition that her identity be protected.
An airline stewardess who was engaged to be married at the time of the interview, Scofield said she talked to the authors despite her concern that she might be stereotyped because she worked at Hooters when the alleged rape occurred. It was during her brief four-month employment at Hooters that she met Keith Henderson. “I met a lot of the players due to my job,” said Scofield. “Hooters had an arrangement with the Vikings. We went to a lot of the football games for promotional purposes. And the players used to come into Hooters all the time. Keith, in particular, came in a lot.”
One evening when Scofield was not scheduled to work, she went with her friend, another Hooters waitress, to visit a Vikings player at his apartment. It was the first time Scofield had ever accompanied her friend to the player’s apartment. She was unaware that other Vikings players lived in the complex, including Keith Henderson, whose apartment was just across the hall. While Scofield’s girlfriend and the Vikings player who they were visiting went to sit in the apartment complex’s hot tub, Scofield stayed behind in the player’s apartment and took a nap. To her surprise, almost immediately after dozing off, Henderson forced his way into the apartment.
“I think he saw my girlfriend and the guy who she was with leaving the apartment to go down to the hot tub,” said Scofield. “I don’t know if he saw me go in or what. He must have. I don’t know how else he would have known I was in there.”
Caught off guard, Scofield nonetheless recognized Henderson right away, having waited on him numerous times. Before she could sit up, he immediately started talking about sex. “He used a lot of foul language, and I told him that I didn’t want to have sex with him,” Scofield recalled. She then retreated to the bathroom. What Scofield described next had an eerie resemblance to what Sally Michaels experienced in Henderson’s bathroom.
“He assaulted me in the bathroom and was ripping off my clothes and then pushed me into the bedroom,” said Scofield. “He was on top of me, forcing himself on me. I totally fought him the whole way. I was kicking and screaming. I kept telling him, ‘No. You’re not going to have sex with me. Stop.’”
As Henderson was about to penetrate Scofield, her friend and the player who she was with returned from the hot tub. When Henderson heard their voices, he quickly jumped off Scofield and buttoned up his pants. When his teammate and Scofield’s girlfriend entered the room, Henderson looked down at Scofield, who was still on the bed, and said, “Thanks baby. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.”
“He tried to make it look like we had just had consensual sex,” said Scofield.
The next day, Scofield encountered an unexpected reprimand when she reported to work. “My manager came up to me the day after I was assaulted by Keith Henderson and told me, ‘If you don’t give the players what they want, you’re going to be fired,’” said Scofield. “Keith had gone to my manager at Hooters and complained that I was rude to him. Keith was totally livid and he really came down hard on my boss.”
As a result of the treatment received from her boss, Scofield quit her job and hired an attorney who specialized in sexual harassment. “Hooters was making my job miserable because Keith Henderson complained about me,” said Scofield. “Hooters is a restaurant. Admittedly, in a place like that you expect a little harassment from the customers. I could handle that. But you don’t expect harassment from your employer.”
Scofield’s lawyer confirmed that she received an undisclosed amount of money in an out-of-court settlement with the company.
After leaving Hooters, Scofield ran into Henderson at the Cattle Company, the same club where he would later sexually assault Dawn Brown. “I saw him at the club, but I didn’t say anything to him,” said Scofield. “He was mad just because I was there. He was still furious from the night that I wouldn’t consent to have sex with him.”
When Scofield left with a male acquaintance, Henderson followed her out into the Cattle Company parking lot. As Scofield was climbing into the passenger’s side of her friend’s Bronco, Henderson brandished a knife and slashed her across the arm. Although the blade did not pierce her skin, it slashed a large hole in her thick leather jacket. “He threatened to kill me,” recalled Scofield. “He lifted me up and was shaking me against the Bronco. He was calling me all these names like ‘white bitch.’ He was screaming at me. He really wanted to hurt me. Luckily, it was a busy place and people started coming toward the vehicle when they heard him yelling. I just don’t think he wanted to literally punch me out in front of all those people.”
As soon as Henderson let go of her, Scofield scurried into the Bronco and the driver sped off. “I didn’t realize until after we had left that Keith had cut my coat with his knife.”
Scofield reported neither the sexual attack nor the knife attack to the authorities. One primary reason was that she did not want her family to find out, particularly her parents, who lived in Minneapolis. “I was actually going to press charges,” said Scofield. “But I didn’t want to go through with it. At the time I just wanted to leave Minnesota and get away. There was a lot of bad memories.”
However, when Scofield was notified by her civil attorney from the Hooters case that Henderson was wanted for raping a teenager, she felt compelled to fly to Minneapolis and cooperate with authorities. “I did go back to Minnesota and make a police statement in the case of the teenage girl who was assaulted,” Scofield confirmed to the authors. Less than a week after reporting her experience to investigators, Henderson was apprehended.
“A lot of the players were always out to get laid,” said Scofield. “But Keith was just more forceful than most. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He just thought that because he was a professional football player, that every girl that he wanted to have sex with, should have sex with him.”
Rape is the toughest crime for victims, without question,” said Sergeant Billington, who has since left the sex crimes unit and now oversees the training of police cadets for the Minneapolis Police Department. “In a homicide, the victim is dead. In a rape, the victim has to go over and over and over this stuff. And some of them never come out.” This is hardly the concern of coaches and general managers when a player is arrested for rape.
Players, as long as they are cutting it on the field, are permitted to slouch through their careers, their deviant lifestyles excused by the old clichÈ that NFL players live life in the fast lane. Then they retire and crash full speed into the laws and restraints that govern the rest of society.
For Lewis Billups, the term “fast lane,” however, had a more literal meaning. On April 9, 1994, eighteen months after retiring and six days after being released from federal prison, Lewis Billups was killed in a horrific car accident. Racing down Florida’s Interstate 4 at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, Billups lost control of his 1987 Corvette convertible, destroying over fifty feet of metal guardrail and slamming into a concrete barrier. The passenger in Billups’s car was killed on impact. Billups’s body was discovered by highway patrolmen on the roadside at approximately 1:00 A.M. after being thrown from the vehicle. He was pronounced dead at Orlando Regional Medical Center hours later.
In the eighteen-month period following his retirement and leading up to his death, Billups was reported to authorities thirteen times for assaulting women, convicted once for raping a woman in Florida, and imprisoned by federal authorities in Georgia for stalking another woman.
For the numerous women who were the victims of his violence, Billups’s violent death was viewed as a blessing. Unlike Keith Henderson, who was shamelessly crass, Billups was a stealthy predator who coupled physical violence and threats with his sexual attacks. Known during his playing days as a gritty cornerback who harassed wide receivers, Billups was notorious among his teammates for using intimidation to get what he wanted from women—sex. “He felt a certain dominance [over women],” ex-Bengals wide receiver Tim McGee told the authors. “He felt he had power over them. He had them in control. I think that had a lot to do with confidence. It was probably an ego thing. He felt he could control them, sexually and physically.”
McGee and Billups were both drafted by the Bengals in 1986. While going on to establish himself as one of the Bengals’ all-time leading receivers, McGee also became one of Billups’s closest friends. He was one of only two Bengals players who made arrangements to attend Billups’s funeral.
“The thing about it was that Lewis was the sweetest person in the world to my wife,” McGee said, recalling Billups’s chameleon-like treatment of women. “He was the sweetest person in the world to other players’ wives too. But he was an asshole to the women he dated. When he got girls behind doors, for some reason he either hit ‘em or he wanted his way sexually. He was a spoiled brat.”
Indeed. While playing for the Bengals, Billups was arrested numerous times for abusing women and was sued in federal court for raping a woman. Never convicted, however, his career went uninterrupted despite his off-the-field violence. Tracy Fair, a Cincinnati woman who was Billups’s girlfriend through part of his career in Cincinnati, agreed to discuss her abuse with ESPN only because Billups was killed. “I was inches away from dying,” Fair said in a 1994 interview. “He beat me for three and a half hours and probably three of it was to my head. I had six plastic surgeries, six on my nose and one on my ear, just that I suffered from blows to my face. Then he cut my hair off.”
Fair filed police complaints on more than one occasion, but never pressed charges. “I knew if I went through with it, he would kill me,” she told ESPN. “He also told me that he would pay somebody to finish my face off. People don’t understand the fear that battered women live in and they think, ‘Well, she dropped the charges. She’s a liar. It didn’t happen. He’s a big football player and she’s slandering his name.’ I was a nobody out of Cincinnati coming after this big professional football player.”
McGee was familiar with the attacks suffered by Fair. “He really messed up Tracy’s mind,” McGee confirmed to the authors. “She’s a sweet girl, but he really messed with her mind.” And Fair was not the only girl familiar to McGee as a victim of Billups’s violence. Jenny Chapman, the sister of NBA star Rex Chapman, endured repeated abuse at Billups’s hands. With Billups’s career winding down in 1991, Jenny Chapman finally pressed charges after Billups threatened to end Rex’s NBA career by breaking his legs in retaliation for Jenny breaking off her relationship with him.
“He hit me close-fisted,” Chapman told ESPN. She too was only willing to discuss publicly the situation on account of Billups’s death. “He slapped me. He choked me … to the point where I’d just pass out and wake up the next morning and have to deal with it all over again.”
According to McGee, Billups’s physical violence toward women was connected to his warped sense of sexual prowess. He used physical violence to gain sexual control. “That’s what he wanted to do with Jenny,” McGee said. “He wanted to control her mind, her body, everything.”
The FBI wiretapped Jenny’s phone and began monitoring Billups’s phone calls to her while he was in his last year in the NFL. The following is a partial transcript from an FBI-recorded call between Billups and Chapman:
J.C.: You gonna have somebody else do your dirty work or you gonna do it yourself?
L.B.: I don’t ever get my hands dirty, Jenny.
J.C.: Yeah, I know, because, see, a real man would.
L.B.: No. A real man who got power wouldn’t.
J.C.: How can you sit here and think that I would want to be with you when you threaten people that I love? How can you think that I would even want to even be associated with someone like you?
L.B.: Because I’m a hard mother [expletive] and I’m gonna prove it to you. I promise you that on my mother’s life.
“I think it was his transition coming into football, coming into money so quickly,” Chapman said, trying to explain Billups’s violent tendencies toward her. “Never having that great amount [of money] just to do whatever you wanted to do and then all of a sudden it brings you power and it brings you all this fame just to do whatever you want whenever you want. He was used to getting what he wanted. If I was not going to give that to him, then he would become violent.”
McGee, who was sympathetic toward Chapman, agreed. “Being an athlete, you get notoriety, wealth, and power,” McGee explained to the authors. “Lewis was a person who used his. He used his to the fullest. I mean he had wealth. He drove a Lamborghini. He drove a Corvette. He had this very plush, gorgeous home in Orlando. But that wasn’t enough for him. He had to use his power of controlling to get somebody. ‘Hey, I’m Lewis Billups and you know I have all this stuff.’ And then once he got ‘em over to his house, he wanted to control them.”
So what does a guy like Billups, who used his fame to get access to and exploit women, do when all of that dries up? As confirmed by a stack of police reports and court records, the authors found that after retirement Billups preyed on women in clubs and bars, portraying himself as an active NFL player and seducing them into social encounters that ended in brutal sexual attacks.
After the Bengals released Billups following the 1991 season, he was signed by the Packers. However, one month into the 1992 season, Green Bay replaced Billups in the lineup with rookie first-round draft choice Terrell Buckley. After being let go by Green Bay, Billups was left without a source of income. The timing could not have been worse. Billups had to hire a criminal lawyer to defend him in the midst of the ongoing federal probe being conducted in the Jenny Chapman case. Billups also had to hire a civil defense lawyer to represent him in Seattle where he had been sued for rape. Meanwhile, creditors were hounding him for debts that were run up while he was living the high life of an active player. The following is a letter Billups wrote to American Express weeks after the Packers let him go:
“I, Lewis Billups, cannot pay American Express Centurion Bank. The reason is, that on or about the day of October 7, 1992, I was fired from the Green Bay Packers. I am now in the process of trying to get on with another team. I have no other means of employment or cash flow. At this point in time, I have no money in the bank. I am trying to sell my house and car to get some cash, but until that happens, I have no money. Thank you and please understand.”
Shortly after writing this letter, on November 30, 1992, Billups convinced Wendy Williams,* whom he met at an upscale Orlando club, that he was still playing in the NFL. Unlike some women who go to clubs in search of gaining a sexual relationship with famous athletes, Williams knew little about football. She was, however, undergoing some marital problems at the time she met Billups and his friend.
Playing the part of the rich, famous athlete, Billups eventually convinced Williams to come join him at his $800,000 Orlando mansion for lunch. “It was something interesting,” Seminole County prosecuting attorney Stewart Stone, who would later prosecute both Billups and his friend, explained to the authors in an interview. “She was intrigued and excited about the opportunity to go with two young, wealthy men, one of whom was a professional football player. She got in over her head.”
Shortly after Williams arrived at Billups’s home, he slipped a depressant into her beverage. Once it took effect, he raped her while his friend secretly videotaped the attack. Williams, unaware that her assault was filmed, chose not to report the incident to police. She feared that Billups’s celebrity would guarantee a media circus. But days later, Billups and his friend showed up at her house in broad daylight and presented her with a videocassette depicting the entire ordeal. Billups then threatened to deliver a copy to her husband’s office unless Williams came up with $20,000.
Billups and his friend repeated their threat numerous times during that week. Finally, Williams telephoned the police moments after the two men showed up in her driveway a second time. Moments later, police apprehended Billups and his friend and seized a videotape from the back seat of their car. “The tape depicted sexual contact,” confirmed prosecuting attorney Stewart Stone to the authors. “It appeared that she was under the influence, but not obviously. There was no sign of overt force, but it was not necessary to prove overt force because Billups was charged as raping someone who was mentally impaired.” Billups’s plan was to drug Williams so that she appeared to be consenting, thus making the video all the more valuable for extorting money.
The following day, Billups’s arrest on rape charges was reported in the Orlando Sentinel. As a result, six more Orlando area women came forward and reported being similarly seduced, raped, and videotaped. “There was no question in my mind that Billups was guilty,” said Stone. “Billups and [his friend] definitely had a thing going.”
As investigators soon discovered, there was more, much more:
• Just weeks earlier, on December 3, 1992, Billups had been arrested for drunk driving. Police had been called to respond to a dispute outside an Orlando area bar, where Billups was berating Patty Abdelmessih and spitting on her. Abdelmessih had provoked Billups’s wrath when she tried to prevent him from forcing another woman into his car. Abdelmessih discovered the woman in the women’s bathroom, moaning and sweating profusely after Billups had been buying her drinks all evening. Referring to the sick woman, Billups’s male companion said, ‘We didn’t mean to dose her.’ Police arrested Billups after he refused to respond to their questions and attempted to drive away.
• In November of 1992, a woman had contacted police and alleged Billups had assaulted her during a tour of his mansion. In her complaint, the woman reported being stripped, raped, robbed of the $50 in her purse, and kicked out of the house. Her clothes were thrown out after her. No arrest had been made because she declined to press charges.
• In July of 1992, an Orlando woman had obtained a restraining order against Billups after reporting that he had been hostile and abusive toward her and had threatened to physically harm her.
• In a neighboring county, sheriff’s officials confirmed that Billups had been involved in at least three additional incidents at several nightclubs, all of which required police intervention.
Before Seminole County authorities wrapped up their investigation into Billups, he was convicted and sentenced to a year in federal prison in Georgia for the threatening phone calls made to Jenny Chapman. While incarcerated, Billups agreed to plead guilty to the charges filed in Orlando in connection with the Williams case. Although Billups was imprisoned, the prosecutors in Florida were disadvantaged due to Williams’s decision not to testify against him if the case went to trial. “It was extremely difficult,” said prosecutor Stewart Stone. “Williams feared Billups.”
It all became academic, however, when Billups died in the car accident less than one week after walking out of federal prison.
“Even though he’s dead, I’m still scared of him,” Chapman said in her interview with ESPN. “I think about the prospect of him being alive and it’s too much. I’m scared of the memories. I’m scared of what could have happened if he were alive. I don’t think I could have had peace in my mind had it ended any other way.”