NBA: Derrick Rose testifies alleged victim consented to sex
New York Knicks basketball player Derrick Rose arrives at U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016. A six-woman, two-man jury has been seated in the trial of a civil lawsuit brought against Derrick Rose by an ex-girlfriend who alleges the NBA star and two of his friends drugged and sexually assaulted her. AP Photo
LOS ANGELES—NBA star Derrick Rose told a Los Angeles jury on Friday that his ex-girlfriend opened the door in her pajamas and invited him and two of his friends into her apartment for what he assumed would be a sexual encounter.
Rose gave a starkly different account Friday than the one the alleged victim told during earlier testimony in the $21 million sexual assault lawsuit brought against Rose by the woman.
READ: NBA: Trial begins in Derrick Rose rape lawsuit
Rose testified that he met the plaintiff, whose identity has been kept anonymous thus far, at a club in 2011 and had a “non-exclusive sexual relationship” with her for about a year and a half.
The eight-member jury must decide whether the woman, or Rose and co-defendants Ryan Allen and Randall Hampton, are telling the truth about the events on the night of August 26, 2013 at Rose’s Beverly Hills house and later at the woman’s apartment near downtown Los Angeles.
READ: Derrick Rose unfazed by rape case as investigation underway
Rose told the jury Friday that the woman had sex with Hampton earlier at Rose’s house and then hours later the trio went to her apartment.
In her own testimony, the woman denied having sex with Hampton in the backyard of Rose’s house and said she did not invite them back to her place where the alleged assault took place.
Rose reiterated the defendants’ claim that the woman invited them to her house and the sex was consensual.
“In my mind, she consented to every other time (the two of us) had sex, so why wouldn’t she this time,” Rose testified.
Rose said when the woman opened the door to her home she was wearing pajamas and “we followed her in.”
No criminal charges have been filed against Rose or the others but the Los Angeles police have said they are investigating the incident.
Rose’s lawyer Mark Baute has painted the lawsuit as a “fake case” in which the woman was seeking a “lottery hit” of a financial payout.
The 30-year-old woman testified earlier Friday that she didn’t sue for money and said that she never gave Rose, Hampton or Allen consent to have sex with her after a boozy night of heavy drinking.
“I did not give them anything,” she said.
Lawyers for the woman allege that the defendants slipped a drug into her tequila drink at the Beverly Hills gathering, then showed up at her apartment and had sex with her while she was unconscious.
The woman said she had dated Rose sporadically beginning in 2011, but that the basketball star had broken off their relationship about two months prior to the alleged assault.
The woman didn’t report the alleged assault to police for two years. Her lawsuit, asking $21 million for emotional distress and other damages, was filed in August 2015.
Rose is expected to continue testifying on Tuesday.
The former NBA Most Valuable Player with the Chicago Bulls was traded to the Knicks this season after spending seven seasons with his hometown club.
