New, more specific indictment against Sharper co-defendant

A new federal indictment in the Darren Sharper rape case gives details about what a co-defendant of the former NFL star is accused of lying about to investigators and brings a federal charge against a man previously charged only in state court.
Friday’s new indictment comes after a federal judge in New Orleans had earlier ordered prosecutors to provide more details about charges against co-defendant Brandon Licciardi, a former deputy in neighboring St. Bernard Parish.
Licciardi is scheduled for re-arraignment Thursday in New Orleans on two counts of distributing drugs with intent to commit rape, one of conspiring to do so, two of witness tampering and one of impeding a federal investigation.
Another co-defendant, Erik Nunez, is in the New Orleans jail. Prosecutors want him moved to federal custody for arraignment by Aug. 6 on a charge of conspiring to destroy evidence: a cellphone.
State court charges accuse Nunez in two rapes and Licciardi in a third. Licciardi also is charged with human trafficking and battery in state court.
Sharper is not charged in this indictment because he already has pleaded guilty in federal court to drugging women with intent to rape them and in state court to three rapes.
The new indictment accuses Licciardi, among other things, of lying when he told investigators that he didn’t know Sharper drugged unsuspecting women before Sept. 23, 2013, and that he’d never taken a drugged or drunken woman to Sharper’s condominium.
Licciardi and Nunez have pleaded guilty to earlier charges in the case.