Jury Clears Derrick Rose, Co-Defendants in Rape Suit

A federal jury in Los Angeles has cleared Derrick Rose and two of his friends in a rape lawsuit filed by an ex-girlfriend of the NBA star, the AP reports. The jury reached the verdict after hearing dramatically different accounts of the August 2013 sexual encounter. Neither side denied the three men had sex with the woman, but the issue was whether she consented or was too intoxicated to do so. Defense lawyers tarred the woman as a liar who tried to sway jurors through her tears to get at Rose's fortune. They claimed she was angry he had dumped her, setting him up and bringing the lawsuit in hopes of a big payoff. The woman's lawyer called the men "sexual deviants" and says they conspired to gang rape her after she was drunk—or possibly even drugged—and incapable of consenting to sex. (More Derrick Rose stories.)