Pete Rose filed a federal defamation lawsuit today against John Dowd, who oversaw the investigation that led to Rose's ban from baseball, for claims Dowd made last summer that Rose had underage girls delivered to him at spring training and that he committed statutory rape. 
 
 The complaint was filed today in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania. It cites a radio interview last summer with a station in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in which Dowd said, "Michael Bertolini, you know, told us that he not only ran bets but ran young girls down at spring training, ages 12 to 14. Isn't that lovely? So that's statutory rape every time you do that." 
 
 Bertolini was a memorabilia merchant whose taped conversations and other information about Rose's gambling were central to Rose receiving a permanent ban in 1989. 
 
 Pete Rose has filed a federal defamation lawsuit against John Dowd, the man who presided over the investigation that led to Rose's ban from baseball. Ethan Miller/Getty Images 
 
 The lawsuit also cites an interview with CBS Radio in which Dowd said, "He has Bertolini running young women down in Florida for his satisfaction, so you know he's just not worthy of consideration or to be part of the game. This is not what we want to be in the game of baseball." 
 
 Rose denied Dowd's accusations. Bertolini has said he never made such claims. Former commissioner Fay Vincent, who was deputy commissioner at the time of Rose's ban, has said that he did not remember such allegations. 
 
 The suit also disputes Dowd's claim that Rose bet against the Reds, for whom he played and managed. It notes that while the Dowd Report expressly states that "no evidence was discovered that Rose bet against the Cincinnati Reds," Dowd told the New York Post in 2002 that he had reliable evidence that Rose did bet against his team. According to the filing, these "direct contradictions by Dowd on the very same subject matter are evidence that Dowd would lie when his personal animus toward Rose overcame him. Dowd's statement that he had reliable evidence that Rose bet against the Reds was maliciously false and reckless and intended to harm Rose." 
 
 At the time of the interviews last summer, commissioner Rob Manfred was considering Rose's request for reinstatement. Dowd had appeared on the shows to discuss that topic, and to talk about whether Rose should be eligible for the Hall of Fame. Manfred ultimately denied Rose's request. 
 
 According to the suit, "Ever since Dowd investigated Rose in 1989 and Rose was placed on the Ineligible List, Dowd actively sought to prevent Rose from ever being reinstated by MLB or elected to the Hall of Fame, and he ultimately made maliciously false and reckless claims against Rose." 
 
 Dowd, 75, who was a longtime partner in the Washington law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, had "no comment" when contacted by ESPN. 
 
 Rose is represented by noted First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus, who has represented Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez, Lenny Bruce and Don Imus, among others. 
 
 The suit does not specify damages except to say that the amount exceeds the jurisdictional minimum of $75,000. It maintains that Rose lost at least two commercial endorsements because of the claims. 

 A sworn statement by an unidentified woman, contained in a motion filed Monday in John Dowd's defense against Pete Rose's defamation lawsuit, alleges that Rose had a sexual relationship with the woman for several years in the 1970s, beginning before she turned 16. 
 
 In the majority of states, including Ohio -- where both the woman and Rose lived at the time -- the age of legal consent is 16, so her allegation amounts to statutory rape. 
 
 Pete Rose has filed a federal defamation lawsuit against John Dowd, the man who presided over the investigation that led to Rose's ban from baseball. Ethan Miller/Getty Images 
 
 Rose is Major League Baseball's all-time hits leader who in 1989 was banned from the game for life after an investigation led by Dowd, then MLB's special counsel, concluded Rose had bet on baseball when he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. 
 
 Rose acknowledged he had a sexual relationship with the woman in court documents made public Monday, but he said his information and belief was that it started when she was 16. He was 34, married and the father of two children in 1975, when he says he began having sex with the woman, referred to in the filing as "Jane Doe." Rose said he does not recall how long the relationship lasted. 
 
 The woman's account does not raise the prospect of a criminal charge for Rose, as it is well past Ohio's statute of limitations. She said they also had sex outside of Ohio when she was 16 or younger, but didn't specify the states, and Rose said their sexual relationship was confined to Ohio. In some states, such as Florida, the legal age of consent is 18. 
 
 Rose sued Dowd for defamation a year ago, in U.S. District Court in Eastern Pennsylvania, because Dowd claimed in a 2015 radio interview that Rose had underage girls delivered to him at spring training and committed statutory rape. 
 
 In the interview, with a station in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Dowd said, "Michael Bertolini told us, you know, he not only ran bets, but ran young girls down at spring training, ages 12 to 14. Isn't that lovely? So that's statutory rape every time you do that." 
 
 In Rose's complaint, he denied Dowd's allegation, calling it "entirely false in every respect." 
 
 Bertolini was a memorabilia dealer whose taped conversations and other information were cited in the 1989 Dowd report as evidence of Rose's betting. When NJ.com published Dowd's remarks three weeks after the broadcast, Bertolini's attorney issued a statement saying his client "categorically denies" them. 
 
 Dowd's motion asks the court to compel Rose to answer questions such as whether he had sex with other high school girls. Rose's attorneys objected to several defense questions, in part due to what they said is his right to privacy. 
 
 John Dowd, whose 1989 report led to Pete Rose's ban from baseball, filed for dismissal of Rose's defamation suit. AP Photo/Al Behrman 
 
 Monday's filing by Dowd's attorneys also notes two journalists' references to Rose's relationships with young women -- in "Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti" in 1991 by James Reston Jr., and in 2000 by USA Today's Jill Lieber Steeg in an ESPN SportsCentury documentary. 
 
 Contacted by Outside the Lines on Monday, Ray Genco, one of Rose's attorneys, said in an email: "John Dowd purposely made a defamatory statement that damaged Pete -- serial pedophilia consisting of the statutory rape of 12- to 14-year-olds during spring training. It is also false. And Judge Tucker just ruled that it constitutes defamation per se. 
 
 "Dowd can't defend his own actions here -- so he is distracting. It's just Dowd attacking Pete instead of defending his own inexplicable accusations on the radio the day before Pete was to be honored in Cincinnati at the All-Star Game. His litigation strategy is to further drag Pete's name through the mud. It's a witch hunt -- and won't be a successful litigation strategy." 
 
 David Tobin, an attorney for Dowd, told Outside the Lines on Monday, "We'll let the filing speak for itself." 
 
 Dowd asked the court to dismiss Rose's lawsuit last August, and two weeks ago Judge Petrese B. Tucker dismissed one of three counts (tortious interference) and said another count (defamation) was insufficiently pleaded, but Rose can amend the complaint on that count. His attorneys characterized the ruling as a victory. 
 
 In December 2015, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred denied Rose's petition for reinstatement and a year later the National Baseball Hall of Fame declined a request from Rose to change its rule that anyone banned from the game is ineligible for the Hall. 
 
 Rose, 76, is a Fox Sports baseball commentator and regularly signs items at a memorabilia store adjacent to a casino in his adopted hometown of Las Vegas. He was in Cooperstown, New York, this past weekend, as he usually is at Hall of Fame induction time, signing autographs at a shop down the street from the Hall. 
 
 Dowd, also 76, is a former federal prosecutor and a longtime Washington attorney who is now leading President Donald Trump's legal defense team in the Russia probe. 
 
 The Reds inducted Rose into their Hall of Fame and retired his No. 14 last year, and last month they dedicated a statue of him outside Great American Ball Park. On Aug. 12, three miles from the federal courthouse where his suit against Dowd is being contested, Rose is to be inducted into the Philadelphia Phillies' Wall of Fame. 

 CLOSE All-time MLB hits leader Pete Rose is accused of having a sexual relationship with a woman in the 1970's before she turned 16, according to documents obtained by ESPN.com. Time 
 
 Pete Rose waves to his fans during the unveiling for a bronze statue dedicated to him at Great American Ball Park Saturday June 17, 2017. (Photo: The Enquirer/Cara Owsley) 
 
 Scroll to the bottom to read the court documents. 
 
 Pete Rose had a sexual relationship with a girl that started before she turned 16 during the 1970s the now-grown woman stated in a sworn statement filed Monday in federal court. 
 
 The testimony was filed as part of the ongoing defamation lawsuit baseball's all-time hits leader filed last year against John Dowd, the man who investigated him on behalf of Major League Baseball in the late 1980s for betting on the game. 
 
 That led to Rose's lifetime ban from the game. 
 
 "In 1973, when I was 14 or 15 years old, I received a phone call from Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds," the woman identified as "Jane Doe" said in Monday's filing. "Sometime after that, Pete Rose and I began meeting at a house in Cincinnati. 
 
 "It was at that house where, before my sixteenth birthday, Pete Rose began a sexual relationship with me. This sexual relationship lasted for several years. Pete Rose also met me in locations outside of Ohio where we had sex." 
 
 Dowd said on a radio station in 2015 that Rose routinely had sex with underage girls, especially in Florida during spring training. That led Rose to file the lawsuit last year. 
 
 “Michael Bertolini told us that not only did he run bets, but he ran young girls for him down in spring training. Ages 12-14,” Dowd said on WCHE 1520 AM in an interview on July 13, 2015, referring to a longtime Rose associate. “Isn't that lovely? So that's statutory rape every time you do that. So he's just not the kind of person that I find very attractive. He's a street guy.” 
 
 A federal judge then ruled that Rose could move forward with cause. At the time, Rose's lawyer reportedly called the ruling "a big win." 
 
 In a written statement included in the filing submitted by Dowd's lawyers, Rose acknowledged the relationship. 
 
 But he stated it started around 1975 and when he thought the girl was older than 16. That's the age of consent in Ohio - although it is older in states such as Florida. Rose also testified that he did not have sex with the girl outside of Ohio. 
 
 Rose was married at the time with two children - he was named the World Series MVP in 1975, when he was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year. 
 
 The filing also asked the judge overseeing the case to compel Rose to provide information about other women with whom he had affairs, something Rose and his lawyers have refused to do so far. 
 
 Rose's lawyer Ray Genco told The Enquirer Monday that the filing does not prove Dowd's case and called it "a media distraction." 
 
 "I doubt this filing gets in front of a jury," Genco said. "This provides no new evidence to back up what he said on the radio, which is that Pete Rose had someone run 12-14 year-old girls for him in Florida." 
 
 Dowd declined comment Monday when reached by The Enquirer, saying "the papers speak for themselves." 
 
 Dowd's lawyer David Tobin also declined comment. 
 
 The lawsuit is just the latest battle between Rose and Dowd, who helped gather the proof needed to ban the Hit King from baseball for life in 1989. 
 
 More about the investigation: Pete Rose's investigator: Never let him back into baseball 
 
 Genco told The Enquirer in 2016 that Rose is targeting only Dowd with the suit, and not the radio station nor "publishers with deep pockets." 
 
 Pete Rose's record-breaking ball fetches $403,000 
 
 The science and math behind Pete Rose's statue 
 
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– The path to "Jane Doe's" statutory rape accusation against Pete Rose is a roundabout one: In 2016, Rose sued John Dowd—the lawyer whose late 1980s gambling investigation helped bring down the baseball star—over defamation. The root of it, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer, was a 2015 radio interview in which Dowd accused Rose of raping 12- to 14-year-olds, whom Rose allegedly had sent to him at spring training camp. As part of that case comes the specific rape allegation, which was part of a motion filed Monday by Dowd's lawyers. Per the filing, the woman alleges the then-married Rose himself called her in 1973, when she was 14 or 15, and they started to meet at a Cincinnati home. "It was at that house where, before my sixteenth birthday, Pete Rose began a sexual relationship with me." Her sworn testimony goes on to say they continued the relationship for years, and that the sex occurred outside Ohio as well. The Enquirer notes the filing contains a written statement in which Rose himself confirms the affair, but he dates it to 1975, and says he thought the girl was well over 16—the age of consent in Ohio. ESPN notes that the statute of limitations has long passed, so no criminal charges would come out of this. But what Dowd's lawyers are hoping results is that the judge will force Rose to answer questions he has declined to respond, citing his right to privacy. They reportedly touch on whether he had sex with other teens.