Ex-NFL player Kellen Winslow II speaks from prison as he attempts to get sentence reduced

Former Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow II recently contacted USA TODAY Sports by phone from the supermax state prison where he currently resides in Tehachapi, California. Winslow, 39, had something to say and agreed to speak on the record after being sentenced to 14 years behind bars in 2021.

So why did he want to talk now? And why should anybody care what he has to say?

Winslow was an NFL first-round draft pick who made about $40 million in his pro career from 2004 to 2013 – but then seemingly descended into darkness with horrific sex crimes against five women. In 2019, a San Diego County jury convicted him of raping a homeless woman on the side of a road, pulling his pants down to expose himself to another and committing a lewd act against a 77-year-old woman at a gym in 2019.

Months later, as he faced another trial on other charges, he pleaded guilty to two more crimes, including raping a 17-year-old woman in 2003 while she was unconscious.

He's been incarcerated since March 2019 and has been trying to get his sentence reduced after learning of new criminal justice reform laws in California. A San Diego County judge recently denied his initial attempts, but Winslow said he will appeal and wants people to know about it. These reforms could lead to reduced sentences for him and other prisoners in the state, raising questions about who deserves to have their punishment lowered and why.

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“They were not in effect during my trial,” Winslow said. “Now that they’re in effect, I am just applying the law.”

Winslow’s health issues from football also highlight larger questions about the links between brain trauma and criminal or other harmful behaviors. He said he identifies to some degree with former NFL player Aaron Hernandez, the deceased convicted murderer who later was found to have a severe case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease linked to head trauma from football.

Yet Winslow himself doesn’t regret playing the game.

“We are there for the public’s entertainment, and this is our job,” he said.

The interview came in multiple calls and was edited for clarity, with additional context added.

What about the victims?

USA TODAY Sports asked him about any remorse he feels about the victims and pointed out how many will view his efforts to get out of prison earlier as a self-serving ploy without any consideration for the women.

“I understand that question,” he said. “I totally do.” But he declined to answer it directly, saying he can’t “speak to my innocence right now.”

He said he pleaded guilty in 2019 as part of a risk calculation to avoid going to another trial in front of another jury without any Black people like himself. He would have faced life in person if convicted. He instead agreed to 14 years in a plea deal and is eligible for parole in 2028.

An attorney for one of the women said she didn't want to comment. The other women were identified in court only as “Jane Doe” and could not be reached.

The San Diego County District Attorney's Office prosecuted Winslow and noted that Winslow's claims recently were denied by a judge. "We believe that Winslow received a fair trial and sentence for this serious sexual assault case," the district attorney's office said in a statement.

Winslow still plans to bring his case to a state appeals court, where judges recently granted a resentencing request in a case Winslow thinks is similar to his own.

What is he trying to do?

He has been representing himself in prison without an attorney but was hoping to hire an attorney for his appeal. He had submitted briefs in state court that try to apply his case to new state laws that could help him reduce his time in prison retroactively. He says one measure – Assembly Bill 124 – applies to his case because it allows for reconsideration of punishments for those who might have been at least partly driven to their crimes because of trauma they suffered before their arrests.

In his case, he argued it was brain injuries from football and other abuse he alleges from his youth.

He hopes another measure – the Racial Justice Act – will help him look at whether racial factors led to him being unfairly convicted or sentenced. Both are new laws that went into effect since early last year and could lead to shorter sentences for defendants and convicts in California on a case-by-case basis according to the evidence.

“When you look at somebody like an Aaron Hernandez, who was only 27 years old, and had Stage 3 CTE, … that’s very alarming and it just raises questions about the unknown,” Winslow said. “What we don’t really know about the brain, the accumulation of blows to the head that we’re taking – We don’t know what effect that has on us.”

Winslow was diagnosed with frontal lobe damage and symptoms consistent with CTE before his sentencing in 2021. "It’s 99% that I have CTE," he said. He declined to say if he’s getting treated for his mental health or other brain injury symptoms. “I can’t answer that one,” he said.

What about race?

Winslow has taken note of the Racial Justice Act, which says the “state shall not seek or obtain a criminal conviction or seek, obtain, or impose a sentence on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.” Retroactive application of this was allowed under AB 256. The question is whether Winslow has evidence that is compelling enough to reduce his sentence. He cites his mostly white jury in his first trial with no Black jurors.

He faced a similar jury makeup before his second trial, which was canceled when he agreed to a negotiated plea deal rather than face that jury. His attorneys requested a change of venue to another location, but it was denied by Superior Court Judge Blaine Bowman, who said it came too late. Winslow also noted Bowman was white, as was the prosecutor in the case, Dan Owens.

He said he wants people to consider whether the system is fair.

“Just to have a chance at an African-American juror, just one – I was just looking for one, and I couldn’t get it, I couldn’t get them,” he said. “I was denied, in my mind, my 14th Amendment right, due process and equal protection of the law of getting a jury of my peers. If you look up the word 'peer,’ it means someone like you. Economically, yes I live around these people, but in society’s eyes I’m a Black man. I think the best example I can give you is I’m biracial. I’m Black and white, but in society’s eyes I’m just a Black man. That’s the scope I’m looking through.”

It's not clear that he can get reconsideration of his sentence based on jury selection, however.

“If a person could show that there was actual racial bias that was exercised in the course of the proceedings, it should apply to jury selection,” said attorney Bob Sanger, past-president of California Attorneys for Social Justice, which sponsored the legislation.

It depends on the judge and evidence. “My opinion is, yeah, it applies (to jury selection), and it’s retroactive,” Sanger said, speaking generally about the law. The defendant “just has to prove it, though.”

Does he identify with Hernandez?

Hernandez was found dead in prison in 2017 at age 27. He was convicted of murder before that and had developed severe CTE despite having a shorter football career than Winslow.

“The only reason I identify with him is he happened to play football, too; we played the same position – he went to the University of Florida, and I went to the University of Miami,” he said. “Just the football correlation, the relation to the brain trauma. You can take any football player and we’re going to have brain trauma. It’s just a part of the game, and I think the misunderstanding on brain trauma – It doesn’t have to take a concussion for your brain to be damaged. It can be sub-concussive blows also. It's an accumulation factor. We’re talking about from youth.”

Why speak now?

His attorneys also cited his brain injuries from football before he was sentenced in 2021, hoping that Judge Bowman would take that into account as a mitigating factor in his punishment.

But Bowman didn’t quite buy it, noting that Winslow pleaded guilty to raping a 17-year-old woman in 2003, when he was 19 and playing at Miami. Bowman implied Winslow didn’t have brain trauma that early in his life.

“I couldn’t say anything at the time, but I was like, 'OK, he (Bowman) doesn’t understand,” Winslow said. “So many of us don’t understand it, and we’re in the beginning phases of understanding this. He (Bowman) basically said I wasn’t in the NFL yet, that I have to be in the NFL to get CTE … It just goes to show you he doesn’t understand brain trauma.”

Winslow elected not to testify at his trial in 2019. Now the new law, AB 124, could allow him to have a new hearing on the matter. But that doesn’t mean he’ll get his sentence reduced. He has to prove his case with a law that was generally conceived to help domestic violence victims and victims of human trafficking – those who lash out and commit crimes after being subject to trauma. The law was designed to take such trauma into account as a mitigating factor when sentencing them.

Winslow is arguing his physical trauma from football and previous abuse qualify him for consideration.

“A judge can hear the evidence and still decide the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigation factors and therefore do nothing,” said attorney Frankie Guzman of the National Center for Youth Law, which helped draft AB 124.

Does he regret playing football?

According to the arguments submitted by Winslow and his attorneys since 2019, head trauma from football helped lead to where he is now, along with a motorcycle accident in 2005. He still doesn’t regret playing the game and said it was part of "God's plan."

“I love football,” he said. “I loved football my whole life. I grew up watching my dad play and so many greats play. So I’m like a modern-day kind of gladiator, you know? When we watched football and we watch UFC and watch boxing, that’s what we are. … I really don’t regret it because I love the game. I have absolutely loved the game. It comes with the game. I love the game. I don’t regret the game.”

Why does he think he has a case?

Winslow’s hopes are boosted by a case from 2016, when a mentally ill man in San Diego shot at police and choked a dog in a standoff with a Special Weapons Attack Team. The man, Hayden Gerson, was sentenced to 33 years and eight months in prison. He had diagnosed mental disorders and suffered a traumatic brain injury during the incident, eventually leading a state appeals court to vacate his sentence and remand the case to the trial court for resentencing last year under AB 124.

The appeals court noted the trial court had discretion on Gerson’s resentencing and expressed no view as to how the trial court should exercise it.

Gerson’s attorney said his sentence then was reduced by two years, but this was for other reasons, “not due to AB 124" and his related trauma. 

“I’m applying the law just like Gerson did, and I’m seeking equal protection under the law,” Winslow said.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com