Isiah Thomas, MSG Found Liable in Sexual Harassment Case, MSG Must Pay $11.6M in Damages

NEW YORK – A federal jury has decided that Madison Square Garden and its chairman must pay $11.6 million in damages to former New York Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders over her harassment lawsuit.

A verdict earlier Tuesday found that Knicks coach Isiah Thomas had sexually harassed Browne Sanders, subjecting her to unwanted advances and a barrage of verbal insults, but also said he does not have to pay punitive damages.

But the jury did find that Madison Square Garden committed harassment against the woman, and decided that she is entitled to punitive damages from MSG.

The jury found that the Garden owes $6 million for allowing a hostile work environment to exist and $2.6 million for retaliation. MSG chairman James Dolan owes $3 million.

"What I did here, I did for every working woman in America," said Browne Sanders, who came out of the courtroom beaming. "And that includes everyone who gets up and goes to work in the morning."

"It's for also the women who don't have the means and couldn't possibly have done what I was able to do, she said.

The Garden said it would appeal.

After an ugly, three-week trial, the verdict gave Thomas a partial victory in the $10 million lawsuit.

"I'm innocent, I'm very innocent, and I did not do the things she has accused me in this courtroom of doing," Thomas said. "I'm extremely disappointed that the jury did not see the facts in this case. 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."

U.S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch called it an "eminently reasonable" verdict, and gave the jurors instructions on how to proceed. Before the jury resumed deliberations, attorneys from both sides appealed to the jurors.

Browne Sanders' lawyer, Anne Vladeck, had urged the jury to afix damages that sent a message "to avoid this happening to somebody else." She said the defendants had ruined her client's career, and she called Dolan a liar.

Thomas's lawyer, Ronald Green, told jurors they had already sent "a very clear, very strong and very forceful message.

"Punishment for the sake of punishment is not what this is all about," he said.

The harassment verdict was widely expected after the jury sent a note to the judge Monday indicating that it believed Thomas, the Garden and Dolan sexually harassed Browne Sanders, a married mother of three.

After the verdict, Browne Sanders hugged family members and friends gathered in the back of the courtroom.

"We believe that the jury's decision was incorrect," MSG said in a statement. "We look forward to presenting our arguments to an appeals court, and believe they will agree that no sexual harassment took place and MSG acted properly."

NBA spokesman Tim Frank said the league's policies "do not encompass civil litigation."