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The dawn of a new NBA season is usually cause for celebration among sports fans, but this year it comes with dark side: the civil court rape trial of 2011 league MVP Derrick Rose.
Rose has a $185 million endorsement deal with Adidas and was acquired by the New York Knicks in a high-profile move this summer. But his trial -- he and two friends are accused of gang-raping a woman who was too inebriated to consent, possibly even drugged -- began the same day as the Knicks' first pre-season game this week.
The trial just began -- but it's already off to a disturbing, intense and graphic start.
SEE ALSO:The 'tragic' rise and fall, and rise and fall, of Todd Marinovich takes its latest turnThe woman who's suing Rose and two of his friends for $21.5 million wept in court during opening statements Wednesday as her lawyer described her "going in and out of consciousness in her house" while "each one of the defendants took turns raping her," according to a courtroom account by the New York Post.
Rose's defense team dismissed her allegations as a "fake" and "sad effort to get a lottery hit."
Meanwhile, during jury selection Tuesday, Rose's lawyer asked jurors intensely direct questions about their views on interracial relationships and group sex. That same night, Rose scored 16 points and dished out five assists in his Knicks debut.
It all adds up to a surreal, complicated, messy and wholly troubling subplot as the 2016-17 NBA season tips off.
'I didn't want any retaliation'
Rose in action for the Knicks Tuesday night.Credit: George Bridges/APRose met his accuser at a party in the Los Angeles area in 2011, right after his MVP season with the Chicago Bulls. The two then started a relationship that included consensual sex and lasted some two years but was not exclusive. Those are the facts the two sides agree upon.
But on the August 2013 night Rose's accuser was allegedly raped, she says Rose and his two co-defendants let themselves into her apartment then took turns raping her while she was too inebriated to participate, consent or object. Rose and his accuser had been hanging out earlier that night and Rose has acknowledged that sex occurred when she said it did -- but insists the intercourse was consensual.
Rose's accuser cried in court again on Thursday, according to the Post, this time while testifying she believes she was also drugged on the night she was allegedly raped. Here are more details from Wednesday's testimony, via Julia Marsh of the Post, who is in Los Angeles covering the trial. (The "McCoy" mentioned is Waukeen McCoy, the attorney for Rose's accuser.)
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Controversial even before trial
Before the civil trial even began Tuesday, the Rose case was bitterly fought.
Last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald issued gag orders to both legal teams, according to the Associated Press, saying, "I'm really fed up with both of you."
Rose enters the courthouse Thursday.Credit: Damian Dovarganes/APThe accuser's team, led by McCoy, had, via a court filing, given media access to a letter from the Los Angeles Police Department. That letter said a criminal investigation regarding the alleged rape is still open. Fitzgerald called the filing "borderline unethical" in issuing his gag order.
But he also admonished Rose's team for other public filings he said were made to influence public opinion more than help actual legal proceedings. For months before the trial, TMZreported on legal documents that appeared designed to shame Rose's accuser.
That tooth-and-nail strategy continued into jury selection Thursday, according to the Post. Mark Baute, Rose's defense attorney, reportedly asked prospective jurors questions including: "If your daughter came home with a black man, would that be OK?" and "Does a fact pattern involving three men having sex with a woman offend you?"
Rose's accuser gave her first press interviews in mid-September. The picture she painted -- as well as comments by Rose in a pre-trial deposition -- is ugly whether or not the NBA star is ultimately found liable in the civil trial.
Rose frequently pressured her for group sex, she said, but she always declined. Rose, too, admitted to asking her to participate in group sex with other men and women.
But the most off-putting and troubling piece of Rose's deposition, first reported by ThinkProgress, came when Rose was asked why it struck no one as strange that three men were going over to one woman's house in the wee hours of a summer morning.
Asked if his friends offered a particular reason for wanting to go to the woman's house, Rose replied, "No, but we men. You can assume."
Asked to clarify, Rose repeated himself.
"I said we men," he replied. "You can assume. Like, we leaving to go over to someone’s house at 1:00, there’s nothing to talk about."
Graphic, stomach-churning details spun in different ways
Rose was named NBA MVP in 2011 and has a massive endorsement deal with Adidas.Credit: M. Spencer Green/APDuring opening statements Tuesday, McCoy said his client recalls Rose "pulling her to the edge of the bed" while "undressed from the waist down and inside of her," according the Post.
McCoy then said that, after Rose was done having sex with his alleged victim, "he took his condom and put it back in the wrapper like he was never there," per the Post.
Baute, Rose's attorney, didn't dispute this -- but said it didn't prove a rape occurred.
"You’re doggone right he takes the condom with him," Baute said, according to the Post. "If you’re an NBA player, you don’t leave your sperm around for someone to get pregnant with it -- the stories around this are legion."
Whew. That's all quite a lot -- and the civil trial that will find Rose liable or not liable for rape is only a day-and-a-half done.
Still scheduled to come as of Thursday afternoon are a cross-examination of Rose's accuser by his legal team, and Rose himself likely taking the stand at a later date.
But no matter what does or doesn't come next, it's an ugly, troubling story -- and one that requires following as the NBA season begins.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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