Jury Clears NBA Star Derrick Rose In Gang Rape Trial

Derrick Rose on Wednesday was cleared by a federal jury of charges in a civil rape trial, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The New York Knicks player and two friends — Randall Hampton and Ryan Allen — were accused of breaking into a woman’s apartment and sexually assaulting her while she was incapacitated, the Times writes. The woman also claimed the men drugged her. The jury found that the victim, who was in a relationship with Rose, consented to sex during the 2013 incident. She reported the alleged sexual assault two years after the incident.

Both Rose and the woman, who has not been identified, gave starkly different accounts of what happened the night of Aug. 27, 2013.

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From the LA Times:

Rose and the woman had been in an open relationship for two years, but broke it off a few months before the alleged rape. Both sides agreed that on the evening of the incident, Rose invited the woman and a friend over to the Beverly Hills house he was renting, where they drank with the three men.

What is at issue is whether the woman was intoxicated and whether she had invited the men to come to the apartment for sex.

At trial the woman testified she had been drinking before arriving at the house and quickly became intoxicated. She told the jury of six women and two men of drifting in and out of consciousness and suspecting the men had slipped a drug into one of the shots of tequila she drank at the house. The woman testified she returned home in a taxi and awoke hours later to find the three men in her apartment. Saying she could remember only “flashes” of the night, she described being raped by the men.

Rose and his friends deny the claims, saying the woman “orchestrated” a plan for them to come to the apartment. Once inside, according to testimony from the men, each took turns with the woman in her bedroom.

In lieu of physical evidence, the jury leaned on the credibility of both parties to come to a decision.

No criminal charges have been filed against Rose, Hampton and Allen. The Los Angeles police continue to investigate the incident.

This is a developing story.