Lawrence Phillips

Lawrence Phillips, 34, guilty of seven counts, including assault with great bodily injury, corporal injury on a spouse or roommate, false imprisonment, making a criminal threat and auto theft. He faces a sentence of up to 25 years in prison at a San Diego Superior Court hearing scheduled for Sept. 8. Phillips, a former NFL and University of Nebraska running back, was accused of choking his girlfriend until she lost consciousness Aug. 2, 2005, and again Aug. 13, 2005.

Deputy District Attorney Nicole Cooper said in an interview that the girlfriend testified she and Phillips were having problems before the first choking incident. She woke up at their Mission Valley apartment and started piling Phillips' clothes on the bedroom floor. Phillips became angry and choked the woman several times that evening, the prosecutor said. A week and a half later, the woman and Phillips went to an apartment on Aero Drive, where he accused her of infidelity. Phillips struck the woman, causing her to fall backward into a bathtub.

They then drove to Rancho Bernardo, where Phillips apparently intended to confront the man with whom he believed his girlfriend was having an affair, according to prosecutors. The woman ran and eventually was allowed into a nearby apartment. Police found her hiding in a bathroom, the prosecutor said. Two of Phillips' former girlfriends testified that he had choked them to unconsciousness on separate occasions, Cooper said. Phillips has a 2000 conviction for domestic violence from Los Angeles stemming from one of those incidents.