Derrick Rose testifies in rape lawsuit: "I feel I didn't do anything wrong"
LOS ANGELES NBA star Derrick Rose testified Friday in a lawsuit accusing him and two friends of raping his ex-girlfriend, saying he interpreted a text message from the woman as consent to have sex with her later that night.
Called to the witness stand by a lawyer for the woman, Rose said he had split up with her before she texted him in August 2013 that he was the reason she “wakes up horny.”
Rose said he invited her over that night for drinks and expected sex would be involved.
Attorney Waukeen McCoy asked Rose if he had specifically texted her to say he wanted to have sex. Rose said he did not.
McCoy also suggested Rose had no remorse about that night.
“I’m sensitive to it,” Rose replied, but added, “I feel I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Rose said the woman came to his Beverly Hills that evening, had a shot of tequila and began coming on to him. He said he rebuffed her and thought she was being too aggressive before one of his friends took her out of the room.
Rose said he later walked outside and saw his friend having sex with the woman, who pulled Rose over to join them.
After a short time, he returned to his room, Rose said.
The Associated Press is not naming the woman because it generally does not identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault.
Earlier Friday, the woman underwent a second day of tough cross-examination by a lawyer for Rose who suggested she had sued for money.
“I didn’t wish him any harm, I wanted him to be accountable,” she said, denying she did it for money.
She was pressured to explain why the lawsuit was seeking $21.5 million and why her first text messages to Rose after the incident were about being reimbursed for cab fare and a “sex belt” she had given him.
Like many of her answers over two days, the response was vague, though she eventually said she brought up the money to get Rose to respond to her.
Lawyers for Rose also presented text messages from the woman to a friend at a time when she was unemployed.
“I need a very wealthy man. We should go find one,” stated one text read by defense lawyer Mark Baute.
The woman also sent a text to a roommate saying that since she had filed suit, they would return their TV and upgrade to a plasma screen, Baute said.
Rose, 28, and his friends Ryan Allen and Randall Hampton have denied the accusations in the lawsuit and claimed the woman willingly had sex with all three.
Her vague recall and testimony at times contradicted what she told lawyers during her deposition and that left her vulnerable to combative cross-examination by the defense.
In a soft voice that at times couldn’t be heard by lawyers or jurors, the 30-year-old woman said she was intoxicated and felt like she had been drugged after the visit to Rose’s mansion.
During cross-examination, she conceded that she never saw any drugs, didn’t have a rape exam performed, and wasn’t tested for pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
Rose’s lawyer used her string of text messages as a timeline to question the woman’s story and whether she even drank enough to black out hours later. And he questioned how she had managed to send lucid text messages during that period - several of which invited Rose to her apartment.