ISIAH THOMAS, BASKETBALL SUPERSTAR AND REAL LIFE BAD BOY FOUND GUILTY

In what could be categorized as a case of "B-Ball Boys Gone Wild", A federal jury decided Madison Square Garden and its chairman must pay $11.6 million in damages to former New York Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders in her sexual harassment lawsuit.

The jury also found Knicks coach Isiah Thomas subjected Browne Sanders to unwanted advances and a barrage of verbal insults, but that he did not have to pay punitive damages.

Deciding MSG had harassed Browne Sanders, the jury found 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, everyone working in a corporate environment." She said it also was for "women who don't have the means and couldn't possibly have done what I was able to do."

The Garden said it would appeal, but the verdict gave Thomas a partial victory after an ugly, three-week trial. "I'm innocent, I'm very innocent, and I did not do the things she has accused me in this courtroom of doing," said Thomas, who's married with two children. "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."

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

"We believe that the jury's decision was incorrect," MSG said in a statement before punitive damages were awarded. "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."

MSG is owned by Cablevision Systems Corp., based in Bethpage, N.Y., and Dolan is Cablevision's CEO. Shares fell 35 cents, or 1 percent, to $34.71 in afternoon trading.

OK, SHE WON HER LEGAL CASE ...
BUT WHO IS ANUCHA BROWNE SANDERS?

As a junior at Northwestern, Anucha Browne became the first woman and the fourth person in Big Ten history to lead the conference in scoring and rebounding the same season, while also earning Big Ten Player of the Year accolades.

Want more? Check out, A BORN WINNER

Why Black Women Are Angry: Whether It's Isiah Thomas Or Don Imus, I Don't Want Anyone Calling Me A Bitch Or A Ho'

Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas And Baller Stephon Marbury Just Don't Get It

In his video deposition, former basketball great and current Knicks' coach Isiah Thomas uttered these words, ""A white male calling a black female a bitch is highly offensive," Thomas said. "That would have violated my code of conduct."

He should have stopped, right there! Instead, here's what happened next.

Asked if he was bothered by a black man calling a black female "bitch," Thomas said: "Not as much. I'm sorry to say, I do make a distinction.

Start paying the sistah now Isiah, cause it's OVAH!!!

In his videotaped deposition played for the jury at fired Knicks exec Anucha Browne Sanders' sexual harassment trial, Thomas said he drew a distinction between whites and blacks when it came to the B-word.

"Maybe I shouldn't go there. ... A white male calling a black female, that is wrong with me. I'm not taking that. I'm not accepting that. ... That's a problem for me."

An African-American once among the NBA's highest-ranking female executives, Browne Sanders was not taking it from anyone. She filed a $10 million suit against Thomas, his star guard Stephon Marbury, and the Knicks' parent Madison Square Garden after the Knicks fired her in December 2005.

Both Thomas and Marbury are fending off her claims they used the B-word to describe her. Marbury has admitted calling Browne Sanders a bitch but denied calling her a "black bitch."

"Now, have I ever used curse words around her? Yes, but at her? No," Thomas said on the video in a packed courtroom in the second week of the widely publicized trial.

Thomas denied ever calling Browne Sanders "bitch" or "ho," as she claims. Please, no," he said when asked. "Come on." He also denied directing the F-word at her or that he was ever interested in her romantically. "I'm not attracted to her, no," Thomas said, flashing an uncomfortable smile.

The videotape was clearly the highlight of a day in which Garden lawyers had hoped to embarrass Browne Sanders on the witness stand.

They spent six hours grilling the former Northwestern basketball star dressed in a pink jacket and black slacks about questionable tax deductions she took and a trail of e-mails she sent to her boss in the waning days of her five-year stint in the Garden's front office.

Thomas was so stung by the pretrial testimony he gave earlier this year that he made a rare statement as he left court. "Please don't mischaracterize the videotape shown in court today," he pleaded, insisting, "I don't think it's right for any man to call a woman a 'bitch.'"