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Derrick Rose's civil rape trial is in the jury's hands now

Dan Devine
·Senior NBA writer
Former NBA MVP Derrick Rose arrives at court to face his accuser in an alleged gang-rape trial. (AP)
Former NBA MVP Derrick Rose arrives at court to face his accuser in an alleged gang-rape trial. (AP)

Almost two weeks after a tearful, volatile opening day of testimony set the tone for the civil trial in which New York Knicks guard Derrick Rose and two friends stand accused of drugging a woman, breaking into her apartment and raping her while she was unconscious, the judge on Tuesday put the case in the jury’s hands — but not until lawyers on both sides wrapped up the proceedings with new rounds of acrimony, allegations and bombast.

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The plaintiff in the case — a 30-year-old woman identified in court documents as “Jane Doe,” who had a non-exclusive sexual relationship with Rose from late 2011 through July 2013 — alleges that Rose and two friends, Ryan Allen and Randall Hampton, placed a drug in her drink during a night out, and that she was in an “incapacitated state of consciousness” when they allegedly “gang raped” her on Aug. 27, 2013. Attorneys for Rose, Allen and Hampton have acknowledged that their clients had sex with Doe on the night in question, but have called the sex consensual, and have claimed that the accuser is trying to “shake down a highly respected and successful athlete.” Rose, Allen and Hampton have maintained their innocence of any wrongdoing.

BuzzFeed’s Claudia Rosenbaum has more on how the dispute played out in court:

Everything changed, [Doe] said, on Aug. 26, 2013, when she arrived at Rose’s rented Beverly Hills house with a girlfriend for a party and was intentionally drugged. She said she took a cab home and ended needing the cabdriver walk her to her front door.

Once home, she remembered throwing up and passing out in her room with her clothes on.

She testified she came to for a “few second flashes” in the early morning, but distinctly remembered Rose having sex with her in her room and then Hampton and Allen having sex with her simultaneously while Rose watched. She said she woke up the next morning sore, her body covered in lubricant and there were used condoms strewn across her bed and room.

But Rose, Hampton and Allen told the jury a much different account. They said the woman willingly had sex with all of them. Hampton testified the woman gave him a lap dance at Rose’s house and then they had “missionary sex” in a pool lounge as the woman simultaneously gave Rose oral sex. Allen testified he also had sex consensual sex with the woman in a room at Rose’s house while they waited for her cab to arrive.

The men testified they went at the woman’s house after the party in the early morning hours of the next day at her urging. The woman greeted them at the door and let them in, they said. Once inside, they each said they took turns having consensual sex with the woman in her room. As evidence, Rose’s defense team presented text messages sent by the woman asking the Knick’s player to come over to her house after the party, asking why he didn’t sleep with her friend at the party and asking for cash the next morning for the friend.

Whether or not Doe consented to the sexual interaction — moreover, whether she was capable of doing so, as she claims to have been incapacitated by alcohol and possibly drugs — is the central question of the civil suit. The disagreement over it is the reason why U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald denied Rose’s motion for summary judgment in the case and insisted it go before a jury. (Fitzgerald also refused to declare a mistrial, despite entreaties from Rose’s attorneys, because he did not believe a delay by Doe’s attorneys in providing them with several text messages constituted the intentional concealing of evidence.)

Tuesday’s closing arguments highlighted the clear, glaring divide in the way the two sides present the facts of the case. Doe’s lawyer, Waukeen McCoy, insisted his client was the victim of gang rape, calling Rose, Allen and Hampton “sexual deviants.” Rose’s lawyer, Mark Baute, argued that his accuser is suing for money and revenge after the former NBA Most Valuable Player ended their relationship, that stereotypes against black men were being used to harm his client and that the media loves “taking a black man down.” (For what it’s worth, Doe’s entire legal team consists of men of color, and McCoy is black.)

Basically, as Deadspin’s Diana Moskovitz puts it, everybody called everybody else a liar, and left it to the eight jurors to start parsing it all out come Wednesday. From Julia Marsh of The New York Post:

“These guys are so far from trespassers and rapists, it’s almost comical,” Baute said, explaining that the three men parked in front of the woman’s apartment on the night in question and even greeted her roommate. […]

He said Rose, who was raised by a single mom, “pulled an entire family out of the South Side of Chicago” by “working his butt off” on the basketball court. Baute also called the accuser a “liar” and “not a real rape victim” who was only after money.

The accuser’s attorney, Waukeen McCoy, forcefully rejected the stereotype charge during his closing statement.

“This case is not about race. This case is about sexual assault,” he nearly shouted in his rebuttal to Baute’s closing statements.

“This is a classic gang rape” perpetrated by “sexual deviants,” McCoy had said earlier Tuesday when he delivered his final statement.

From Joel Rubin of The Los Angeles Times:

“She’s not looking for a quick dollar,” McCoy said, “she’s looking for accountability.” […]

The woman, Baute said, “is not a real rape victim.… She is a liar.”

“The only reason we’re here,” he added, “is because Derrick Rose has money and she wants some of it.”

Speaking of which, the disposition of the case could have even farther-reaching financial consequences for Rose than whatever settlement a jury might award Doe … a matter about which Rose’s attorneys specifically pleaded with the jury:

The jury of six women and two men must now consider three separate allegations — trespassing, sexual battery and battery — and reach separate unanimous verdicts on defendants Rose, Allen and Hampton. How long such deliberations will take remains to be seen, but we could have a verdict by day’s end.

However the proceedings wrap up, after the conclusion of the trial that has kept him away from the bulk of Knicks training camp and preseason play, Rose is expected to rejoin his new team in time for next Tuesday’s season opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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