Oregon City, Ore. (AP)-As a NBA player Ben McLemore was found guilty of raping a 21-year-old woman during a Lake House party attended by many of his then teammates of the Portland Trail Blazers, a jury ruled Thursday.
The jury in Clackamas County, immediately south of Portland, found McLemore, 32, guilty of rape, illegal sexual penetration and one count of sexual abuse. He was not found guilty of another count of sexual abuse, Portland television station KGW reported.
The conviction was planned for Wednesday.
“We acknowledge that there are people who fear that individuals with the status of celebrities or a prominent position can prevent prosecution. Not in Clackamas County. This case shows that my office is prosecuting criminal acts, regardless of the static of the perpetrator,” said the public prosecutor John Wentworth in a statement.
The charges came from a party on October 3, 2021, in the Lake Oswego house of his trail blazers teammate Robert Covington.
The prosecutors claimed during the trial that the sexual encounter was rape, while McLemore’s lawyer prevented it was consensual sex.
The woman said she was incapacitated for work after a night of heavy drinking and was unable to give permission. Prosecutors submitted photos of the woman who floated over a toilet and then fainted on a couch, The Oregonian/Oregon Live previously reported.
She said she woke up at a certain point during the rape and froze of fear.
“I don’t know who this person is,” she testified. “This is a random person who does something like this.” The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of sexual violence.
At one point she said she let her body slide on the floor in an attempt to stop the attack. The woman testified that McLemore pulled her back on the couch and continued.
Covington testified earlier that he saw the woman flirting with McLemore while they were sitting on a couch.
McLemore testified that he also drank, but claimed that the sex was consensual. He also said that he and the woman had no conversation before, during or after the action, after which he immediately left the house.
One of his lawyers, Kris Winemiller, said that McLemore left after receiving an angry message from this woman at the time, who followed him and wanted to know why he was not in their own Lake Oswego house.
Clackamas County public prosecutor Scott Healy said there was no confusion. “If you look at all the surrounding circumstances and you judge the evidence in this case, I indicate that the suspect is guilty,” he said while closing arguments on Tuesday.
Another lawyer, Lisa Maxfield, argued for McLemore’s acquittal.
“The only reasonable judgment in a case where two people get drunk and have sex and the man is drunk than the woman, the only reasonable judgment in a case like that is not guilty,” she said.
The woman said she had not hired a lawyer to sue McLemore and did not look for money from him. Instead, she continued the criminal case because “you don’t do that to someone, let alone someone you don’t know.”
McLemore, who played in Kansas, was the seventh choice in the NBA design of 2013 by the Sacramento Kings. He also played for Memphis, Houston and the Los Angeles Lakers for his last NBA season with Portland in 2021-2022.
Since then he has played in Europe and China. Last August he signed with a team in Turkey.
