After three hours and 45 minutes of deliberation, a jury reached a verdict in the case against New York Knicks point guard Derrick Rose. The Los Angeles jury ruled that Rose and his two friends are not liable for the alleged drugging and gang-rape of a 30-year-old woman identified as “Jane Doe.” According to Yahoo! Sports… 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 — had alleged that Rose and two friends, Ryan Allen and Randall Hampton, placed a drug in her drink during a party at Rose’s Beverly Hills rental home on Aug. 26, 2013. She claimed to have taken a cab home, that she needed the cab’s driver to walk her to her front door, that she remembered throwing up and passing out in her bedroom with her clothes on, and not much else — besides Rose, Hampton and Allen being in her apartment, Rose having sex with her, and then Hampton and Allen later having sex with her while Rose watched. Attorneys for Rose, Allen and Hampton had acknowledged that their clients had sex with Doe on the night in question, but called the sex consensual. The defendants testified that the accuser’s house had urged them to go to her house after the party, that she’d let them into her apartment herself, and that they took turns having consensual sex with the woman in her room. Their attorneys claimed that the accuser was trying to “shake down a highly respected and successful athlete.” The jury reached its verdict after three hours and 45 minutes of deliberation on Wednesday, one day after hearing closing arguments in the case, which stretched for nearly two weeks. The six-woman, two-man panel had been charged with considering three separate allegations — trespassing, sexual battery and battery — and reaching separate unanimous verdicts as to whether Rose, Allen and Hampton should be found liable on any of the claims. The plaintiff had been suing Rose for $21.5 million in damages. The not-liable verdict means Rose doesn’t have to pay any money out to his accuser.
