http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/sports/basketball/ny-knicks-derrick-rose-rape-lawsuit.html 2016-09-16 07:03:38 Knicks’ Preseason to Begin With Derrick Rose Under Cloud of Rape Case Rose, newly acquired from the Bulls for the 2016-17 season, is scheduled to be in a Los Angeles courtroom as the defendant in a lawsuit when the Knicks’ play their first preseason game Oct. 4. === Derrick Rose Five injury-plagued years later, Rose is not the same explosive All-Star he once was, but he is still a formidable player. And he is now also a Knick, acquired by the team this summer in a trade with the Bulls that would have once been unthinkable. Rose is looking for a fresh start in the 2016-17 season, and the Yet when the Knicks open their preseason schedule on Oct. 4 in Houston, Rose is scheduled to be in a courtroom in Los Angeles for the start of a civil case in which he is the defendant. A lawsuit filed by a former girlfriend of Rose’s alleges that he and two friends trespassed in her apartment early one summer morning in 2013 and raped her while she was unconscious. Rose’s lawyers have called the suit, which seeks $21.5 million, extortion and a money grab. The lawyers, in court filings, state that Rose and his friends had sex with the woman on the day in question but that the encounter was consensual. No criminal charges have been filed. Still, the graphic accusations come amid repeated episodes involving athletes and charges of sexual assault, and a heightened awareness of the issue. During the early years of Rose’s career, he was a hero in Chicago. He was the kind of star who once broke down in tears discussing the devastating effects of gang violence in the South Side neighborhood where he grew up. He donated $1 million to After School Matters, a local charity, in 2014. That year, he was the first N.B.A. player to wear a shirt during warm-ups that bore the last words of Eric Garner, a black man killed by a white police officer in Staten Island. “I Can’t Breathe,” the shirt read. The Rose described in court filings by his ex-girlfriend, whose name has not been made public, is different. On the night of Aug. 26, 2013, according to her version of events, she and Rose and two of his longtime friends, Randall Hampton and Ryan Allen, were together at Rose’s house in Los Angeles. After several drinks, she said, she went home, feeling ill; she then vomited and blacked out. She said she had awakened the next morning with a burning sensation and lubricant covering her legs. She said she had flashbacks of Rose, Hampton and Allen assaulting her. Rose says the accuser let him and his friends into her apartment. Asked during a deposition if he and his friends had discussed why they were going there that night, Rose said: “No, but we men. You can assume.” Last summer, the woman filed a police report along with the lawsuit against Rose. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said it had received no evidence to review for possible prosecution. As for the Knicks, Phil Jackson, the team president, was asked about the case in late June on the night of the In a civil trial, the burden of proof for a jury to find for a plaintiff is only that his or her story be more believable than not. “O.J. Simpson was acquitted,” said Daniel Medwed, a criminal law professor at Northeastern University, referring to Simpson’s criminal trial on murder charges. “But he lost his civil suit. The bar is much lower.” Brandon Anand, the ex-girlfriend’s lead lawyer, said his client was open to a financial settlement. In what some viewed as an effort to pressure Rose, the woman spoke to several news media outlets this week and held a 90-minute conference call with reporters on Thursday. In that call, she and her lawyers addressed the reason she had waited two years to file the case — she said she had been scared and embarrassed — and detailed some of what she said was the graphic behavior of Rose and his friends on the night in question. The defense has requested that the woman’s name be made public. If the case does go to trial on Oct. 4, Rose’s 28th birthday, the proceedings can be expected to be ugly, said Aya Gruber, a law professor at the University of Colorado who has written extensively about the issue of sexual assault. “This isn’t a case about poking holes in legal theory,’’ she said. Anand contended that Rose’s legal team had not been responsive to requests to negotiate a settlement. Rose’s lawyer, Mark Baute, did not respond to a request for comment. According to court documents, Rose and his accuser met in 2011 at a party in Los Angeles and soon began dating. Now, if the case goes to trial, Rose may still be significantly damaged by his involvement in it even if he prevails, Gruber said. “He could be guilty or not,” she said. “But he’s also being tried in the court of social media.’’ And that, she said, can have a lasting impact.