LAS VEGAS — A 19-year-old woman testified Monday that former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Richard Seigler spent several months last year persuading her to become a prostitute, and took the first $450 she earned.
“He said that was a good start,” Deanna Engel told Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Pro-Tem Nathaniel Reed, who ordered Seigler bound over for trial July 10 on felony charges of pandering, providing transportation for a prostitute and living from the earnings of a prostitute.
Seigler’s defense lawyer, Stephen Stein, called it “absurd” to think an NFL player earning $450,000 a year would work on the side as a pimp or live off the earnings of a prostitute.
“He didn’t force her,” Stein said.
The lawyer cast Engel as a jilted, celebrity-struck lover.
Seigler, 26, a former star for the Oregon State Beavers, did not take the stand during his preliminary hearing. He pleaded not guilty May 17 to charges that could get him up to 12 years in prison and $15,000 in fines if convicted. He remains free on $9,000 bail.
“The truth will be brought to light,” Seigler said outside court.
Engel, who lives in Cheney, Wash., testified that she recently received a cell phone text message from Seigler with one letter: “Y.” She said she did not respond.
Seigler said later he thought he might have sent the message to Engel by mistake.
Engel told the court she was still in high school when she met Seigler on an Internet Web page in May 2006.
She said she spent several days with Seigler in what she called a “honeymoon suite” at the Stratosphere hotel-casino in July, and returned in October to accompany Seigler while he drove to Inglewood, Calif., to see a doctor about a leg injury.
“I liked him a lot,” Engel said, adding she had hoped to become Seigler’s girlfriend.
But she said she understood what she was getting into when Seigler talked with her about earning money from men and left her with associates in December with instructions about how much money to charge for various sex acts with men at Las Vegas hotels.
“By then, I was getting the idea,” Engel said.
She said she went with a woman named “Nikki” to meet men for sex at a hotel.
Engel identified “Nikki” as Seigler’s brother’s girlfriend, and said she was with Nikki when she gave the first $450 to Seigler last December.
Engel said Seigler paid her airfare from Spokane to Las Vegas in January, and picked her up at McCarran International Airport on Jan. 5. She stayed at a home with Seigler family members and associates and was arrested Jan. 6 by undercover police at the Wynn hotel-casino with a woman whom she said she met through Seigler.
Charges against Engel were dropped in February, an aide to Clark County District Attorney David Roger said.
Seigler, of Las Vegas, surrendered to authorities in Pittsburgh in May after a warrant was issued in Las Vegas for his arrest.
He played for Oregon State from 2000 through 2003, and was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 2004. He went to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2005, was cut in 2006, but returned to the Steelers practice squad. He was released after his arrest.
At Oregon State he was a four-year letterman linebacker, selected twice to the All-Pacific 10 team, and was the co-MVP of the Beavers during his senior year.