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James Harden has managed to avoid missteps off the basketball court for much of his career, but now he’s been named in a negligence lawsuit because of his nephew’s alleged actions.
According to a new lawsuit filed in Harris County, Texas, a woman named Marisa Watley says she was at Harden’s mansion for a New Year’s Eve party when she was “brutally raped” by his nephew, Justice Armani Blackburn.
Watley says she was out one night enjoying dinner with friends—known as Jane and Emily—when the party moved to a nearby club, where Harden was partying in a VIP section. After befriending him, the three of them ended up at Harden’s home, which is where she met Blackburn.
He offered her a drink, and she says shortly after taking a swig, “her memory became extremely hazy” and she tried talking to her friend, “but she was fading in and out and felt as though she could not speak.”
Eventually, Blackburn allegedly tried to get her to go to another room, and the next thing she remembers is him being on top of her.
“The next thing Ms. Watley recalls is being shocked into consciousness while lying face down on a bed with a man behind her having aggressive sex with her. For the first few moments that she can recall of the assault, she was in a dream-like state and was not fully awake,” the lawsuit reads.
She says that Blackburn began demanding to know if she was on birth control, and when she repeatedly said no, he stopped the assault, and she started frantically looking for her phone.
The following afternoon, she says she kept getting calls from a California number, later learning it was Blackburn. She also says she went to the emergency room that day as she began struggling with her mental health because of the incident, and now “speaks with a heavy stutter —a symptom of severe trauma. With the help of her sister, she is seeking therapy and psychiatric help. She will be suffering from the fallout of this event her entire life.”
Watley’s friends say they also took a drink from Blackburn’s bottle and passed out shortly after, and began looking for her when they awoke.
The Los Angeles Clippers star is being accused of failing to “exercise reasonable care” with his security team “by instructing them to let drugged women lie unprotected, they created a foreseeable risk of sexual assault, ultimately causing Ms. Watley’s rape.”
Watley demands a jury trial and economic, compensatory, and punitive damages against Blackburn.
See social media’s reaction to the case below.