LONG BEACH, Calif – A onetime California high school football star who spent five years in prison on a false rape allegation is hoping that at age 26 he still has a shot at an NFL contract.
"I think that any team that gives me an opportunity will be really impressed with what I can do despite all of what I've been through these past 10 years," Brian Banks said Friday on NBC's "Today" show.
Charges of rape were officially dropped a day earlier after Banks' attorney gave prosecutors a tape in which his accuser said she felt guilty about making up the allegations in 2002.
At the time, Banks was a star linebacker at Long Beach's Polytechnic High School, with plans to play at USC. His dreams of an NFL career were derailed when Wanetta Gibson, his then 15-year-old classmate, accused him of rape.
Rather than face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted at trial, he accepted the advice of his former attorney to plead no contest and served five years behind bars.
Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/26/wrongly-accused-ex-football-star-hoping-nfl-team-gives-him-shot/?test=latestnews?test=latestnews#ixzz1vzbT8HIo Don't you have to be a true felon to be in the NFL? /s
