A former girlfriend of Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose has filed a lawsuit against the NBA player and two of his friends, claiming that they drugged and gang-raped her two years ago.
A representative for Rose said Thursday the allegations are “completely false and without any factual basis,” and called the lawsuit “a desperate attempt to shake down a highly respected and successful athlete.”
The Chicago Bulls released a statement saying the team just learned about the lawsuit and does not have all the facts.
“It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time,” the team statement added.
The woman, called “Jane Doe” in the suit, charges that in August of 2013, Rose and his two friends put some kind of drug in her drink while she was at a home in Beverly Hills where the basketball star was living at the time. A female friend of the plaintiff was concerned about her as she became incapacitated, the lawsuit says, and put her in a cab so she could get home.
However, according to the lawsuit, Rose and his two friends went to the woman’s apartment early the next morning, entered through an unlocked door and took turns raping her. When she came to later, she didn’t call police, the suit explained, because she was “ashamed and embarrassed by what had happened to her” and she didn’t want her conservative family to find out.
In the suit, “Jane Doe” says she has few memories of the incident.
“Jane has very little recollection of the events that followed given her incapacitated state of consciousness, with a recollection of only few second flashes at a time,” the lawsuit states. “However, Jane does recall brutal details of the rape.”
When contacted by CNN, the Beverly Hills Police Department said Thursday it first heard of the case through TMZ, and it had no information on the allegations.
The woman is seeking unspecified damages for lost wages, mental pain and anguish and severe emotional distress. CNN calls to her lawyers were not immediately returned.
Rose representative Lisa Cohen said the basketball player was in a “non-exclusive, consensual sexual relationship with the plaintiff for over two years” but ended the relationship in 2013. The woman had “no complaints about Mr. Rose until various lawyers began to surface and demand that the plaintiff be paid millions of dollars,” the representative added.
Rose, who comes in at No. 20 on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest paid athletes, signed a $95 million contract with the Bulls in 2011 and was named the NBA’s most valuable player the same year. Injuries forced him to miss about half of the 2011-2012 season and most of the 2013-2014 season, but he came back to average almost 18 points per game in the 2014-2015 season.
Forbes reports he’s also got a $185 million shoe deal with Adidas, which said Thursday it wouldn’t comment on any pending litigation.
“Our support and partnership with Derrick Rose is unwavering,” the company said.
