Former NBA guard Ben McLemore was found guilty Thursday of raping and sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman after a lake house party in 2021 while he was playing for the Portland Trail Blazers.
McLemore, 32, was convicted of first-degree rape, first-degree unlawful sexual penetration and second degree sexual abuse by a jury in Clackamas County, Oregon, according to a Clackamas County press release.
“We recognize there are those who fear individuals with celebrity status or a position of prominence can avoid prosecution,” District Attorney John Wentworth said via a statement. “Not in Clackamas County. This case demonstrates my office prosecutes criminal acts regardless of the offender’s community status.”
McLemore will be sentenced July 9.
The sexual assault occurred Oct. 3, 2021, after a party at then-teammate Robert Covington’s house in Lake Oswego. The victim had been drinking heavily and was “hammered unconscious drunk” that night, prosecutor Scott Healy told jurors. It was the most alcohol the woman ever had to drink in her life and the most intoxicated she had ever been, Healy said.
The victim vomited earlier that evening, and witnesses said she had difficulty walking, slurred speech and could barely lift her head, Healy said.
The victim passed out on a large living room couch around 2 a.m. Later, McLemore began sleeping on the same couch. At around 6 a.m., the victim regained partial consciousness when McLemore sexually penetrated her with his fingers, then began having sexual intercourse with her.
The victim was “fading in and out” of consciousness, frightened and traumatized, Healy said. Later that day, she sought a specialized medical examination for victims of sexual assault.
“(The defendant) needs to be held accountable for what he did,” the victim said during her trial testimony. “You can’t do that to somebody, let alone somebody that you don’t know either. You don’t do that to people and just be able to get away with it. I don’t care who you are.”
McLemore’s attorneys, Lisa Maxfield and Kris Winemiller of Pacific Northwest Law, LLP, couldn’t be reached for comment by The Athletic at the time of publication.
McLemore’s attorneys disputed the victim’s account of events, claiming she initiated sexual contact and consented to it. His attorneys asserted that although the victim and McLemore were intoxicated at the time of the encounter, the victim was sober enough to consent.
The seventh pick in the 2013 NBA Draft by the Sacramento Kings, McLemore played for the Memphis Grizzlies, Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers before his last season with the Trail Blazers in 2021-22.
(Photo: Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)
