Rape accuser loses $21.5 millon civil suit against Knicks guard Derrick Rose
New York Knicks basketball player Derrick Rose arrives at U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday, Oct. 6
NBA star Derrick Rose, 28 was found not liable in civil rape trial by a Los Angeles jury
Jane Doe’s rape allegations found not to be credible
Rose was accused of gang rape by a 30-year-old woman, he’d been in an on and off physical relationship with her for two years before ‘dumping’ her via text
She reported the alleged rape two years after, because she was ‘too embarrassed at the time’, then filed a 21.5 million civil lawsuit against Rose a couple of weeks later
All three accused men testified they had consensual sex with the accuser at Rose’s LA home before accepting her invitation to have more sex with her on Aug. 27, 2013
The jury deliberated for just under four hours Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court before finding the accuser hadn’t proven her claim that Rose and two friends gang-raped her while she was drunk or drugged in her central California apartment.
Rose showed no emotion as the verdict was read, and just shook his lawyer’s hand.
Outside of court, he said he was thankful the jury “understood and agreed with me.”
The accuser filed her multi-million dollar civil lawsuit last year, claiming the men drank tequila with her and possibly drugged her at a Beverly Hills rental home on Aug. 26, 2013, and then let themselves into her apartment a few hours later to gang rape her while she was drifting in and out of consciousness, unable to consent.
Rose and his co-defendants Randall Hampton and Ryan Allen, frinds since their teenage days in Chicago, denied the woman’s claims.
Each testified during the two-week trial, saying they all had consensual sex with the accuser at the luxury rental house, later accepted an invitation to have more sex with her in the predawn hours of Aug. 27, 2013.
In his closing argument Tuesday, Rose’s lawyer Mark Baute said the woman welcomed the men into her bed with “open arms and open legs.”
In her lawsuit Doe claimed the sexual assault took place in August 2013, when Rose and his friends of slipped drugs into her drink at his Beverly Hills house. Although she managed to return home with the help of a friend, Rose and his friends broke into her apartment later that night and gang raped her while she was incapacitated.
She’s only coming forward with the accusations now because she was “ashamed and embarrassed” at the time of the alleged rape.
With no physical evidence in the case, the jury was left to make its decision based on often-lurid testimony and a series of text messages produced by the woman.
As the trial strived to reach consensus between both sides on the cognitive state of Jane Doe at the time of the alleged rape, Rose testified – on three separate days altogether – he was calm, called himself a “loner” and said he believed he had consent from the woman based on her words, actions and their nearly two year dating history.
He told the court, the alleged victim sent him sexually suggestive text messages the morning of Aug. 26, 2013, engaged in sexual activity with him at the Beverly Hills house, invited him back to her apartment in text messages and then soberly led him and his two friends into her apartment and explicitly told them to take turns.
“If someone tells you come in one at a time, and you’re a guy, what is that?” Rose testified.
He testified that his accuser “grabbed” him when he entered her bedroom and initiated the sex that ended with him stowing his used condom in his pocket.
“If I’m in a room with her and she says no, no, I’m never going to force myself (on her),” he testified.
Star guard Derrick Rose #25 of the New York Knicks
Asked why he took his used condom with him, he said, “In my profession, they teach us right when we enter the NBA, if you can’t flush it, take your condom with you.”
He pointed to the texts from the morning before, when Doe texted him out of the blue, saying he was her “inspiration” and that he’s the reason she wakes up “horny.”
“When she sent texts like that, 99% of the time, it ended with sex. So what do you expect?” he said.
In the second week of the trial,Gabriela Chavez, a former friend of Doe’s told jurors the accuser is a scheming liar. Chavez testified that the woman identified as Jane Doe told her the sex she had with the trio was consensual — and she “was scheming” to get Rose’s money.
Chavez said Doe invited her to Las Vegas in September 2013 and confided that she had sex with Rose and his two friends.
“She told me she had sex with all three of them, and she was upset that Derrick was OK with it,” Chavez said in a sworn statement.
Doe was grilled on the stand over text messages she sent to Rose before arriving at his house, especially one in which she claimed to be buying a sex belt at a “girls on girls” store.
She said she fabricated the story because she previously received the belt as swag at an event and wanted Rose to think it was new.
“I didn’t want him to think I was regifting,” she testified.
In closing Doe’s attorney , Waukeen McCoy, called the sex belt a “red herring” used by the defense for “slut shaming.”
In more than eight hours of her own tearful testimony, the woman said she blacked out at the Beverly Hills house and only remembered vomiting in her bathroom before passing out with her room “spinning.” She claimed she woke up to “flashes” of the defendants having sex with her without her consent.
“I don’t consider sex happening to a person that’s blacked out. I don’t consider that sex,” she said, crying.
Rose’s lawyer said during his closing argument Tuesday that the woman was a liar looking for a “wealth transfer” from Rose.
“This woman packaged a fake rape case,” he said.
“I submit to you all, this is young 20-somethings doing what young 20-somethings are doing all over the country,” Baute said of the sexual activity that night and early morning.
“The only reason we’re here is because Derrick Rose has money and she wants some of it,” he said.
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