Derrick Rose will be present for the Knicks preseason opening tonight against the Houston Rockets but will be flying to Los Angeles on Wednesday to stand trial in his sexual assault case.
Rose told Houston reporters that he is expecting to miss some practice time and is not expecting any type of settlement yet.
The trial against Rose began on Tuesday without Rose present. A Los Angeles woman is suing him for $21.5 million over claims that Rose and two other men forced group sex upon her in 2013 while she was semi-conscious.
She says that Rose, whom she previously dated for a couple of years, and two other men broke into her Los Angeles apartment while she was inebriated and had non-consensual intercourse with her. Derrick Rose insists that she was not nearly as drunk as she now claims and that she invited the three men into her apartment, where, they say, they had consensual sex with her.
No less than two weeks ago Rose told reporters, “I feel like I’m innocent and I feel like I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Should a jury rule in the woman’s favor, she could expect anywhere from $200,000 to $14 million in money damages, experts said.
The parties could also still settle before the end of the trial.
