Massage therapist could decide Derrick Rose's trial fate - New York Post

[massage]

A massage therapist with martial-arts training — and possibly a penchant for group sex — looms large over the $21.5 million civil rape trial against Knick Derrick Rose.

Jessica “Kendra” Groff is scheduled to testify as early as Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court about what happened between Rose, his two friends and their accuser, who claims they gang-raped her in August 2013.

But Groff, who accompanied the accuser to Rose’s Beverly Hills home the night of the alleged attack, is also the subject of a mistrial motion brought by Rose’s attorneys last week.

The attorneys claim the accuser, who had dated the NBA star on and off, purposely deleted a telling text message sent early on Aug. 27, 2013, less than two hours before the alleged attack. It refers to Groff, 31.

“She was mad at me babe. Why you have me bring a bitch and you ain’t finna [sic] f- -k her,” reads the 1:37 a.m. text from the accuser, 30, to Rose, 28.

The text, the lawyers argue, contradicts the accuser’s claim that she did not consent to the sex that occurred with Rose and co-defendants Ryan Allen and Randall Hampton less than two hours later at her downtown LA apartment.

The judge will hear arguments on the motion before the trial resumes Tuesday.

The accuser testified last week that she brought Groff to Rose’s home on Aug. 26, 2013, to give them back rubs.

Rose had texted his accuser earlier that day asking her to “surprise me with something.”

“I felt like I could bring her along. She’s my good friend,” the accuser testified, saying Groff had recently graduated from massage-therapy school.

“She’s very intimidating. She has a black belt,” the woman added, noting she was nervous about seeing Rose just a few months after they broke up.

During cross-examination, Rose’s attorney, Mark Baute, read a midnight text message from the accuser introducing Groff to Rose ahead of the party at his home that night.

“I have a chick she a massage therapist in the valley can u send driver to pick me up and then ill go get her from work. I told her I would take care of her,” the text reads.

Baute said in opening statements that, once at the party, Groff cornered the point guard and was “outside Rose’s bedroom in her bra and panties trying to have sex with him.”

Baute said Rose’s friend Allen kicked Groff out of the house because Rose “has too many women looking to get at him.”

Rose, however, has contradicted that claim, testifying last week, “I never saw Kendra.”

Meanwhile, Groff claims she was just chatting with Rose in a bedroom when Allen barged in and asked what was going on.

“Just talking,” Groff recalls saying. Then Allen shouted, “F- -king talking, take your clothes off,” according to the masseuse’s sworn statement.

When Groff refused, Allen allegedly said, “What are you in here for then?”

Both sides agree Groff and the accuser left in a cab at around midnight.

The alleged gang rape occurred at around 2:30 a.m. at her home. Rose has said it was consensual group sex.

Groff is expected to testify that the woman told her the next day that the men “forced themselves on me.”

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