Disgraced former championship-winning Perth Wildcat player Kendal "Tiny" Pinder has admitted to new rape charges that allegedly left a woman in hospital with "life-threatening" injuries.
WARNING: This story contains details that may some cause distress to some readers.
Pinder was set to face trial in New South Wales last week, charged with two counts of sexual assault and recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm.
But the 67-year-old former Harlem Globetrotter instead pleaded guilty to the rape offences during an arraignment hearing in Sydney on April 26.
The first offence happened in November 2009.
According to court documents seen by the ABC, Pinder had allegedly forcefully penetrated the victim without her consent.
The woman was rushed to hospital, where she had to undergo surgery and required a blood transfusion due to the large amount of blood she lost.
Court documents described her injury at the time as "serious and life threatening".
The second rape happened in March 2021, when the victim was asleep.
She told police she woke up to find Pinder on top of her and tried to push him off, telling him "what are you doing".
"He is so strong I knew I couldn't stop him so I just let it happen because if I fought back I would have hurt myself," she said, according to court documents.
Afterwards, the victim told Pinder to "hand yourself into the police station or I will go myself".
She said Pinder had called her repeatedly after the incident, until she blocked him.
The woman contacted the police to report the incidents in April 2021 and he was arrested in June.
The ABC understands the woman had also taken out a restraining order against Pinder.
Pinder has yet to plea to the grievous bodily harm charge.
History of sexual abuse during basketball career
Pinder's basketball career began in America in 1970s, when the two-metre-tall Bahamian was drafted into the NBA.
He went on to play for the Harlem Globetrotters between 1980 and 1983, before moving to Australia in 1985.
He played for several NBL teams, including the Sydney Supersonics, Illawarra Hawks.
Pinder helped the Wildcats win their first ever championships in 1990 and 1991.
His celebrated career came to an end soon after he was handcuffed by police in the change rooms at half-time of a Wildcats final in 1990.
Pinder's first sexual conviction dates back to 1976 in Miami, Florida, when he was found guilty of unlawful carnal knowledge of a teenage girl.
In 1992 he was convicted over a sexual attack on a 17-year-old girl at his unit in the southern Perth suburb of Melville two years earlier.
Pinder was released on a three-year good behaviour bond, but the sentence was overturned by the Court of Appeal, which imposed an 18-month jail term.
He was then found guilty of raping a 23-year-old woman several months later.
The following year he was convicted for the third time for raping a 16-year-old girl at his unit after offering her a lift home from the bus stop.
All three offences happened between 1988 and 1990 — while Pinder had been playing with the Perth Wildcats.
Months after he was released from jail in 1995, Pinder moved to New South Wales and was picked up by the Illawara Hawks.
A year later he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in the back of his car in Wollongong.
Pinder told the girl to get into his car and then drove her to a park, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him.
In 2016 he was cleared of a historical rape charge dating back to the late 1980s.
Pinder was accused of luring the woman, who was a teenager at the time, to his home and forcing himself upon her on his bed.
In his decision, District Court Judge John Staude said there were too many "inconsistencies" and "troubling aspects" in the woman's evidence to prove the charge "beyond a reasonable doubt".
More recently, the notorious basketballer was jailed in 2020 after stalking a woman from a train station in Sydney's southern suburbs.
He followed her down the street and repeatedly demanded that she get in his car.
Pinder was sentenced to 18 months in jail and would have been eligible for parole last month but is set to remain behind bars until he is sentenced for his new charges in June.
