NEW YORK — New York Knicks coach Isiah
Thomas sexually harassed a female executive of the basketball
team, a jury decided on Tuesday, and it awarded her $11.6
million in punitive damages from team owner Madison Square
Garden and its chairman James Dolan.
The seven-person federal jury ruled that
Anucha Browne Sanders, former marketing executive for the NBA
team, was wrongly fired in retaliation for her complaints of
sexual harassment.
"What I did here, I did for every working
woman in America," Browne Sanders told reporters outside the
courtroom after the payout was determined.
Browne Sanders, 44, was fired in February
2006 from her $260,000 a year job as a Knicks vice president,
an action she said was in response to her sexual harassment
complaint against Thomas.
She had accused Thomas of making unwanted
advances toward her and subjecting her to verbal insults,
which she said began in 2004 after he joined the team as club
president. She had asked the court for $10 million in damages.
Thomas insisted afterward that he was
innocent and vowed to appeal the verdict.
"I will appeal this and I remain confident
in the man that I am, and what I stand for, and the family
that I have," he said.
"I’m innocent. I’m very innocent. And I did
not do the things that she accused me in this courtroom of
doing."
Jurors were not able to decide whether
Thomas should pay Browne Sanders damages, so a mistrial on
that count was declared by US District Court Judge Gerard
Lynch.
Under the payout, the Garden, which is
owned by Cablevision Systems Corp. must pay $8.6 million and
Dolan must pay $3 million.
The Garden and Dolan had countered that
Browne Sanders was fired for incompetence and for interfering
with its investigation of her harassment complaint.
Company officials for Cablevision were not
immediately available for comment.
The trial and its outcome were the latest
black eyes for a Knicks organization that has struggled
competitively in recent years.
Thomas steered the Knicks to a 33-49 record
last season in his first year as coach after being ordered by
Dolan to take over from coach Larry Brown.
Brown, a Hall-of-Fame coach who had been signed by Thomas
to a five-year $50 million contract to pilot the Knicks,
posted a 23-59 record in his first season before being fired.
