Pro athletes spend a lifetime watching videotape, the best of them studying with the fervor of Zapruder film nuts. They revel in finding tiny flaws in their jumpers, a presnap lean by an opposing fullback, the two-degree shift in arm angle every time a pitcher brings the curve.

Yet Darrell Russell, the Raiders' two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle, cannot bring himself to watch the tape playing a dozen feet in front of him on a 27" monitor inside a sterile California courtroom. With his mother, Eleanor, president-elect of the NFL Mothers Association, seated just a few feet behind him, Russell looks down. He looks sideways. He looks at a law journal. He looks at just about anything but the shaky camera work and gravelly sound bites on display at this, his pretrial hearing on charges of drugging and raping a woman his attorneys portray as a groupie.

What Russell chooses not to view is the video image of the 28-year-old with cornrows, milky skin and an aquiline, curvy body. She's lying on her back, clumsily engaged in sex with two men at once.

A low voice from behind the camera slowly issues a series of obscene stage directions, the only printable one being, "Give her the business." Once in a while, during the 21-minute scene, the voice growls out praise: "That's what I'm talking about."

The voice is that of Russell, who also directed and shot this amateur porn flick, whose stars are a woman he partied with a handful of times and a pair of ex-cons he'd only recently met. His independent filmmaking is now key evidence in a court case in which he's facing 25 felony counts. The 26-year-old's pretrial hearing has been continued to Aug. 2. But his handicam handiwork has inadvertently exposed things the NFL and other pro leagues would rather the ticket-buying public not see. It lays open a world of rich young men who follow different rules than the rest of society, unwritten codes and unspoken messages that are sometimes so murky not even they can keep track.

Consider the words of a young NFL star asked to comment on the Ray Lewis double-murder case last year for CNN's Crossfire:

"When you leave early to make a lot of money, that's basically going into life without having a practice run," the player said. "And I think that at a very young age, getting an abundance of money and not having that advantage of having survived a practice run … you're going to be put in some binds where you're going to have to make decisions that might not always be the right decision. And sometimes, that can cause a problem."

The thoughtful young star? Darrell Russell.

***

It all began on Indulgence Night.

Wednesday at Harry Denton's Starlight Room in downtown San Francisco means the women get in free. Young women in little black dresses, young men in hip turtlenecks and sport coats, retired ballplayers and active call girls all packed together in a classy old penthouse done up in gold-trimmed satin curtains and red-velvet settees.

On the 21st floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, the Starlight is a celebrity eagle's nest, where Harry the host caters to the glitterati. The club's Web site proudly quotes Herb Caen, the legendary Bay Area newspaper columnist: "The first time Will Clark of the San Francisco Giants went into Harry Denton's Bar and Restaurant, he said to Harry, "You don't know who the f--- I am, do you?" "No," replied Harry, "but if you are famous, I will kiss your ass."

On one recent night, an off-duty stripper (we'll call her Tina) is smiling, sipping a cosmo and talking about how much she loves the scene. "It's so perfect for watching people," she says, not long before offering sexual favors -- in a more private setting -- for a mere $200. "This town can be pretty wild."

On Jan. 30, 2002, another Indulgence Night, Russell rolled in with some friends -- including teammate Eric Johnson -- and acquaintances, among them Naeem Perry, whose last name Russell didn't know, and Ali Hayes, whose full name Russell didn't recognize when police questioned him later. Nothing unusual for Russell, who, friends say, was on the scene often, and often with people he barely knew.

The guy loved to be the life of the party, and had a talent for it as big as the talent that got him into the NFL. At more than 300 pounds, he moved more like an NBA 2-guard than a pulling guard, with exceptional hand-eye coordination and an unfair ability to change direction. "Almost in a class by himself," says agent Joby Branion, who represented Russell in Leigh Steinberg's firm before leaving last year. "One player told me that on the field, Darrell could do whatever Darrell decided he wanted to do."

More than that, Branion says, Russell has a quick mind and a quicker wit. At a Super Bowl party in New Orleans in '97, the 20-year-old Russell grabbed a mike and performed a dead-on rendition of the Counting Crows' "Mr. Jones." "He could just captivate a room," Branion says. "He could have had his own sitcom, like a Steve Harvey almost."

At the end of January, not a month removed from being handed a one-year suspension for his third NFL drug policy violation, Russell went to the Starlight to meet the alleged victim, the same way they'd met for the previous few months: She and a bunch of her girlfriends would go to a club, and he and a bunch of his guy friends would drop by. They'd drink and they'd dance and they'd talk. On at least three occasions, she and Russell ended the night having sex.

By day, she managed a 192-unit apartment complex, the hours filled with computer work. "Routine," she said on the stand. Nights proved more exciting. Pretty enough to pose in Playboy (in an issue in 2001), she liked to get dolled up, go out with girlfriends and drink Long Island iced teas. More than a few times, the woman met and had relationships with professional athletes -- including some 49er players and a Seattle Mariner.

In the world of pro athletes, it's not unusual for men and women to get to know one another in groups, party together in groups and sometimes pair off. It's a relationship, but it's not exactly dating. "What do you mean by dating?" the woman would say on the stand, when Russell's attorney asked her repeatedly if she dated his client. "We were seeing each other."

Before her last meeting with Russell at the Starlight, according to police records and court testimony, the woman and her friends left her apartment in Sunnyvale without a penny. Didn't need one. They were friends with Chip the bartender, and he'd given them two free rounds by the time Darrell arrived a little before midnight.

They talked and hung out at Darrell's private table. Then, according to her court testimony, Russell gave her a drink a half-hour or so before the 2 a.m. closing time. A short time later, Russell, Perry, Hayes and the woman set off for Johnson's house in Alameda.

What happened next is the main issue in the criminal case brought by Alameda County. The woman says she felt funny after sipping the fruity pink drink, and remembers very little of the rest of the night. One of her friends, Mao Ke, testified she had a sip of the same drink and began feeling "weird" shortly thereafter.

The woman says she didn't know she'd had sex on camera with two strangers until a friend told her the next day. The prosecution believes Russell drugged her, and a poison-control expert testified at Russell's hearing that the woman's behavior was consistent with a person under the influence of a blackout-inducing club drug called gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB.

Russell's defense attorneys say that's absurd. No drug was in the woman's system when she was examined at a hospital 16 hours later (though experts say GHB disappears from blood and urine within 12 hours) and, the defense says, she'd had drunken blackouts before. The prosecution's GHB expert, under cross-examination, said it was at least possible that she was under the influence of alcohol. Besides, Russell passed the polygraph test commissioned by his lawyers. They say the woman plans to sue, and just wants Russell's money.

What isn't in dispute is that Russell videotaped Hayes and Perry having sex with the woman -- who appears by turns groggy, smiling, compliant and nearly motionless. But the video's meaning is in the eye of the beholder. Prosecutors see the tape as evidence she was drugged and violated. The defense sees something else. "Looks like consensual to me," says Eleanor Russell, Darrell's mother, after unflinchingly watching the video in court.

***

In the age of the celebrity sex tape, Russell is tuned in to the zeitgeist.

Pop-star sex videos have been an Internet staple and a running joke in the music business, at least until R. Kelly's recent indictment after a taped tryst with an underage partner (the crooner denies it's him on the tape). Athletes tape their sexual encounters "more often than not," said Hayes' attorney, William DuBois, shortly after his client's arrest.

Darrell doesn't like his new uniform.

Other athletes have videotaped their sexual encounters as a precaution against women who would bring rape charges -- a kind of electronic condom. Cowboys tackle Erik Williams recorded a 1996 encounter with a woman who brought rape charges against him and Michael Irvin. The woman later recanted her story and charges were dropped. Says one agent, who asked not to be identified: "We tell some of our guys, especially the ones who might like to have orgies or whatever, that if you're into that, you should tape it." Left unsaid is that at least some of those cameras are hidden.

Yet in Russell's case, the camera seems to have gone beyond mere protection. The 21 minutes in question were part of a 125-minute cassette showing Russell and others in sex acts on other nights. And Russell's room was filled with homemade videotapes, some sexual, some not. "It seems Darrell had a thing for that video camera," says deputy district attorney Kevin Murphy. Whatever the motivation, this movie backfired. "Without the tape," Murphy says, "there is no case."

Videotape isn't the only recording in the Russell case. The player's only statements in court came courtesy of an audiotaped interview with Alameda police Sgt. Joseph Dwyer. Silver-haired, titanium-jawed and ruddy-faced, Dwyer looks like a comic-book big-city detective. Before choosing to get a lawyer, Russell agreed to talk with Dwyer on Feb. 1.

On the tape, Dwyer says the woman on Russell's video looks drugged, and he's trying to get Russell to agree with him. For much of the 45-minute interview, Russell won't play along. The player says he asked the woman, twice, if she would have sex on tape with Perry and Hayes. Russell tells the cop she said yes, twice. But Dwyer's persistent questions intensify, and Russell's voice grows worried.

He plays Russell's video. "Does that look like someone that's responsive?" Dwyer asks. Dwyer is leading Russell, but he doesn't bully him. This isn't Sipowicz on NYPD Blue; this is a real cop trying to extract incriminating statements from a suspect.

Gradually, Dwyer succeeds.

"It's entirely possible somebody put something in her drink," Russell says.

"And that's based on what?" Dwyer asks.

"Just by how passive she is," Russell answers.

A little later, after denying anyone had opportunity to dose his date's drink, Russell admits, "She looked like, just looks like she's, I don't know, I guess on something, but not alcohol."

***

Young people in search of "something, but not alcohol" are increasingly turning to GHB. A colorless, odorless liquid originally developed as an anesthetic, GHB has developed a collection of cult followings. For ravers, a gulp or two can feel like drinking a six-pack, minus the calories. (Dose it right, and you forget your inhibitions to the point where you don't care whom or what you're having sex with. Dose it wrong -- as some users do -- and you forget how to breathe; you can end up in a coma, or dead.) Bodybuilders believe G stimulates production of human growth hormone and, thus, leads to bigger muscles. Insomniacs say it helps them sleep. And date-rapists use it to incapacitate and erase the memories of victims. The only drawback, besides the comas and the fact that it's illegal, is that GHB is more dangerously addictive than heroin, with potentially lethal withdrawal symptoms. Safely detoxing requires a 10- to 15-day hospital stay, medical experts say.

Raiders kicker Sebastian Janikowski has been linked to the stuff. Tallahassee cops arrested him for having GHB outside a club there two years ago, though he was acquitted of possession. And last October, according to police reports, emergency workers responded to a report of a GHB overdose at San Francisco's Sno-Drift Bar and found Janikowski flailing wildly on the dance floor. He was taken to the ER in restraints and given five stitches, though he recovered quickly enough to make practice the next day. Witnesses told police they saw Janikowski ingest what looked like G. Janikowski's agent said the player only had a couple of beers and slipped while dancing. No charges were filed.

Murphy, the prosecutor in the Russell case, finds Janikowski's GHB links interesting. Janikowski appears on a tape confiscated from Russell after his arrest. Russell introduces "my man SeaBass," and an apparently intoxicated Janikowski lets out a whoop. But Janikowski's agent, Paul Healy, says, "They were teammates and know each other, but Sebastian's not involved in this."

GHB is commonly used in the Bay Area. Dr. Jo Ellen Dyer, the local pharmacologist who testified that the woman in the Russell case showed symptoms of GHB use on the tape, has become one of the world's foremost experts on the drug, owing to the number of ER cases she's seen the past dozen years.

At the trendy Sno-Drift, the young twentysomethings know all about it. "Tastes like sweat," says one patron. "It made me really sick." As he gets up to go to the dance floor with his girlfriend, he grabs a piece of paper from a pile of postcard-size fliers promoting the bar's future events and conspicuously covers his date's drink. Can't be too careful.

***

The flock of pretty young women has nowhere to go. They're led to a small office across the hall from the courtroom, but Russell, the man some of them are there to testify against, is already there. They're quickly shooed back out into the hall, where one of them is hassled by supporters of the defendants. It gets tougher in the courtroom.

One of Russell's attorneys is Cristina Arguedas, a short blonde woman with an outsized courtroom presence and a résumé to match -- she was a member of O.J.'s dream team. Here in Alameda, she spends much of the next four days using her bullhorn voice to make the alleged victim and her friends look none too bright and less than honest about the events of Jan. 31. She depicts the woman as a groupie afraid of what her friends would think if they knew her bedroom habits.

Arguedas elicits from the woman that a few weeks before the alleged rape, she had sex with Russell and his teammate Johnson a half-hour apart, and argues that Russell had reason to believe the woman was willing to engage in group sex. Arguedas also hammers home that the woman forgot what happened during a previous encounter with Russell after drinking too much. Maybe, the defense says, the woman wasn't drugged -- just drunk -- and thus a willing participant in Russell's little Spice Channel.

The woman's friends take a beating on the stand as well, with Arguedas catching discrepancies between their statements to police and court testimony. But there's no questioning their loyalty.

Miriam Sanchez, a former roommate and an assistant women's basketball coach at Menlo College, testified she grew suspicious after arriving at Johnson's house in the wee hours of Jan. 31. Johnson drove her to his place, and a short time later, she kicked Perry off her sleeping friend. She screamed obscenities at Russell, who carried the woman to the car. Sanchez took her friend home.

Later that day, Johnson revealed to Sanchez that Russell videotaped the woman having three-way sex. Sanchez testified that she forced her reluctant friend to the hospital for tests, which led to the police investigation.

During his police interview, Russell sounds surprised that his sometime lover would bring charges. "We're supercool," he says on the tape. He says she gave consent to sex with his two friends, the same way she had sex with Russell and Johnson on the same night. Russell says he told her, "It means you're down for me, and you'll do anything I want you to do, as long as it's cool and everything."

But Sanchez says that while her friend liked to go out and have fun, the accuser had lines she wouldn't cross. Maybe her friend would be with two football players in the same night, but she never would have voluntarily slept with Hayes and Perry. "They're not her type," Sanchez says from the stand, frowning.

What is her friend's type? Sanchez is asked.

"Just clean -- I mean, they don't look good … they're not cool."

In contrast to Russell's expensive-looking, color-coordinated suits that scream "pro athlete," Hayes and Perry must sit through the hearings in yellow jumpsuits labeled "P Alameda County" on the back. As felons on probation with long records for drug possession, assault and probation violations, Hayes and Perry weren't granted bail, and have spent the past six months in jail. The two have been largely voiceless, convenient scapegoats. Media reports subtly cast them as hangers-on who dragged Russell to the gutter. As Hayes and Perry suppress giggles during the airing of the videotape, it's easy to see why.

	Will Darrell Russell ever return to the field?

In court, though, they have far more supporters than their famous co-defendant, a cheering section of people in T-shirts proclaiming their innocence. Among Hayes' supporters was his cousin, Keith Wilwright, a 6'8" high school basketball player who has played at nearby Oakland Tech and at Mt. Zion Christian Academy in North Carolina. Hayes' mother, Patricia Wright, brought Keith to the hearings as a warning. "I wanted him to see what happens when you hang around groupies," she says. Her nephew's response: "I've had groupies following me for five years."

Convincing a jury of Russell's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt will be a struggle. The defense has established there was no chemical evidence of GHB in the woman's system and found holes in her statements. Publicly, Russell shows no doubt, reasonable or otherwise, in his inherent righteousness. "Just do me a favor," Russell told reporters after posting $1.2 million bail in February. "As much effort as you guys are putting to trashing my name, I want you to put the same effort in clearing my name when this is all over."

Clearing Russell's name will require more than an acquittal. He could win his case and lose his livelihood. Russell's seven-year, $22M contract signed in 1997 was at the time the richest rookie contract ever. NFL Players Association documents obtained by The Magazine show his restructured deal called for him to make $9 million this season, but he won't get a cent until the NFL lifts his drug suspension.

And before he can play again, he must apply for reinstatement and supply "all pertinent information" about his abstinence from substances of abuse, involvement with said substances and arrests or convictions for any criminal activity.

Right about now, Russell's PowerPoint presentation wouldn't be too convincing. For a three-time drug offender like Russell, the NFL commissioner has wide latitude to deny reinstatement. But it could be that Russell doesn't know those rules, or doesn't care. Because in the middle of his grueling week of hearings in mid-June, where his every move and utterance could mean the difference between freedom and prison, between the NFL and oblivion, Russell decided to make a very public appearance at the place where it all began. On a Wednesday night, Russell, big as life in a flowing white shirt and dark slacks, dropped by the Starlight Room. People say he hung out until 2 a.m., leaving with a bunch of friends, including some pretty women.

Darrell Russell, apparently, lives by his own rules, one of which seems clear: You don't pass up Indulgence Night.

This article appears in the July 22 issue of ESPN The Magazine.