Good they got him, but we have a rapist in the oval office, doesn't seem a fair measure of judgement in this country - if you are guilty you should do the time.....no matter how much money you have ..... DD
* happend at Covington's party in 2021 * lady was drunk, but when she woke up, she claimed he was on her. * Ben was believed to be married at the time. (social media wedding photos in 2018), And was already a father. had a kid in 2017. Spoiler: oregonlive article [Crombie] A woman told a Clackamas County jury on Wednesday that former Trail Blazer Ben McLemore raped her as she lay incapacitated after a night of heavy drinking at the Lake Oswego home of another former Blazer, Robert Covington, in the fall of 2021. A woman told a Clackamas County jury on Wednesday that former Trail Blazer Ben McLemore raped her as she lay incapacitated after a night of heavy drinking at the Lake Oswego home of another former Blazer, Robert Covington, in the fall of 2021. The woman, who was then 21, said she did not know McLemore, 32, before the night of Oct. 2 when she and three friends arrived at Covington’s house for a party. She said she was passed out drunk in the early morning hours on a couch in Covington’s living room and awoke to McLemore sexually assaulting her. McLemore’s trial began Tuesday with a full day of testimony from the woman. McLemore faces allegations of first-degree rape, first-degree unlawful sexual penetration and second-degree sexual abuse. McLemore’s defense team confirmed in an opening statement that he had sex with the woman but argued it was consensual and that the woman initiated it. McLemore is expected to testify. McLemore played one season with the Blazers in 2021-22 and is no longer with the NBA. He has played professionally in Europe, China and most recently Turkey. Dressed in a dark gray suit, McLemore sat next to his attorneys, Kris Winemiller and Lisa Maxfield. The woman lived in Vancouver at the time and attended college in Washington. She now lives in Texas and works for a cosmetics company, she said. The Oregonian/OregonLive does not typically identify alleged sexual assault victims. She testified that a friend invited her to the party, though she didn’t know Covington was the host. Covington played 11 years in the NBA, including for the Blazers in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. Since leaving the Blazers, Covington has played for the Los Angeles Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers. He suffered a knee injury midway through the 2023-24 season and didn’t play again. The woman arrived to see several Blazer players she recognized, including Covington, Quinn Cook and Nassir Little. Cook, who played in the NBA for five years, was on the 2021 preseason roster before the team later waived him. He currently plays professionally in China. Little was the 25th overall pick of the 2019 NBA draft by Portland, where he played from 2019-2023. He currently plays in the G League. The woman said she did not recognize McLemore; the two briefly introduced themselves, she said. She said she arrived intoxicated and continued to drink shots once there. The prosecution displayed photos from that night that showed her crouched over a toilet and passed out on a couch. The party spilled into the early morning hours of Oct. 3, she testified. After vomiting twice, she passed out on a couch, waking up briefly to see one of her friends, Covington and McLemore all asleep, she said. McLemore was sitting at the end of the couch where she was lying down, she testified. She said at one point, still groggy from alcohol, she awoke to discover McLemore raping her. She froze in terror and did not react, she said. “I don’t know who this person is,” she testified. “This is a random person that is doing something like this to me.” She said her “body felt locked.” “Because if I’m playing dead, maybe it would make it stop,” she said. She testified that she let her upper body slide toward the floor to interrupt the assault and McLemore pulled her back onto the couch and continued. Under direct examination, the woman testified that she did not hire an attorney to sue McLemore and did not seek money from him after the encounter. She said she pursued a criminal case because “you can’t do that to somebody, let alone somebody that you don’t know.” Winemiller, one of McLemore’s attorneys, said she would call multiple witnesses who will attest to McLemore’s character and treatment of women. She emphasized McLemore’s gentle demeanor, describing his hardscrabble upbringing in St. Louis, Missouri, and his devotion to his family, especially his two young children. She said he splits his time between St. Louis and Sacramento, where his children live with their mother. That fall, McLemore hoped to get together with other recently drafted players and organized the party at Covington’s house, Winemiller said. “He’ll tell you that he understood this to be completely consensual and initiated by” the woman and “not initiated by him,” Winemiller said. She said she expects Covington to back up McLemore’s account. She said Covington saw the woman initiate sexual contact with McLemore on the couch and Covington then stepped out of the room. Winemiller acknowledged that McLemore took off quickly after the encounter, saying he had received angry messages from his then-wife who tracked his location and wanted to know why he was not at their own home in Lake Oswego. The trial is expected to take about two weeks. A jury of 14 people, including two alternate jurors, is hearing the case. The jury is made up of four women and eight men. The trial is scheduled to continue Friday. Found guily 3 of 4 counts
Not a rapist at all, not the burn you think it is, he got in a fight, the charges were ultimately dropped after he completed an anger management class... Maybe stick to truth? Raping is a problem, he got convicted good, Trump did too...but he walked....this is a problem when we don't hold people with money accountable. Just talking about rapists here.....and law and order. People thinking Rape is political are part of the problem....it isn't. DD
