| Closing arguments set Thursday in Knicks harassment case |
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| Written by Admin |
| Thursday, 27 September 2007 02:36 |
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NEW YORK (AP) -As New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas remembers it, his contact with former team executive Anucha Browne Sanders was infrequent and usually friendly and respectful. Sometimes they greeted each other with hugs and kisses on the cheek, but there was nothing romantic about it, Thomas testified as he denied allegations in Browne Sanders' $10 million sexual harassment lawsuit. ``She was a co-worker, and that's the way I treated her,'' he said. Closing arguments were set for Thursday after Thomas finished two days of testimony in federal court in Manhattan. Thomas denied claims that he repeatedly addressed Browne Sanders as ``bitch'' and a ``ho'' while they worked together at Madison Square Garden. Degrading a woman that way ``is never OK,'' he told the jury of five women and three men Wednesday. ``It is never appropriate.'' Thomas added, ``I've never cursed at Anucha. I've cursed around Anucha.'' He also calmly downplayed a videotaped deposition in which he suggested he would be more troubled hearing a white man calling a black woman a ``bitch'' than if a black man said the same thing. ``It's very offensive for any man - black, white, purple,'' he said under questioning by one of his lawyers. Thomas, 46, also contradicted earlier testimony by Browne Sanders that during a conversation about season ticket holders, he snapped, ``Bitch, I don't give a (expletive) about these white people.'' Season ticket holders ``are the backbone of how we all make a living,'' he said. The jury was sent home early Wednesday after Thomas concluded his testimony. Browne Sanders, a 44-year-old former Northwestern University basketball star, says she was dismissed in 2005 because she dared to accuse Thomas of routinely using vulgar language in his first year and of later making unwanted sexual advances toward her. She seeks reinstatement to a job as vice president of marketing, which paid as much as $260,000 annually. Asked about an exchange with Browne Sanders following a Knicks game in 2005, Thomas smiled and asked, ``Is that the `no love' hug?'' Thomas said he ``went to give her a kiss on the cheek, and she recoiled is such a way that it made me feel uncomfortable, and I said, 'What? No love today?''' He said he was surprised to learn later that Browne Sanders was pursuing a sexual harassment claim. U.S. District Court Judge Gerard E. Lynch interrupted a cross-examination of Thomas after the plaintiff's attorney kept using the term ``locker-room language'' to refer to vulgarities central to the case. Said Lynch: ``We have spent three weeks in this courtroom using all kinds of vulgar language, so we don't have to be coy about that.'' |
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