NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A former Vanderbilt football player who encouraged his teammates to rape an unconscious female student was sentenced Friday to 17 years in prison under a Tennessee law that requires people convicted of aggravated rape to serve 100 percent of their time behind bars.
Surveillance video showed Brandon Vandenburg helping to carry the woman into his dorm room, where testimony showed he handed out condoms to three of his teammates and egged them on. The 23-year-old former player also took cellphone videos of the June 2013 dorm room rape and emailed them to friends in California while the crime was ongoing.
He was found guilty in 2015 but that verdict was overturned after lawyers learned that the jury foreman had not revealed that he had been a victim of statutory rape. Vandenburg was convicted again in June, on five counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of unlawful photography.
He faced a sentence of 15 to 25 years in prison, and his victim had asked for the maximum punishment.
The woman, whom Vandenburg had begun dating shortly before the attack, did not appear in court Friday, but a prosecutor read her statement to Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins.