Hey, look... it's the stenographer! Word, they still have those? That's cute. There's two, in fact. One is a cute female, the other is super-professional looking. Even his moustache is professional-looking. He's wearing a white suit... he looks like very Borat. The cute young female is just an observer or trainee or something. Oh, wait... duh... she must be The Intern, waiting to testify.
The First Witness:
The try starts where it left off, with Dan Glossman (sp?) at the stand. Meanwhile, a couple of females, one a freelancer for Court TV, has sat down next to twitchy guy.
The trial resumes with the defense (Green) asking the judge to explain to the jury that Glossman's testimony about Anucha's job evaluations was just his opinion, not fact. The judge deems this "too subtle" a difference for him to make, but he's repeated whatever the defense wants him to say. The jury is then summoned into the room, and he repeats whatever it was that Green ended up requesting.
The Jury:
No blacks. An Asian woman, a white woman, a white guy (balding), an Indian dude, and three others. I can only really see the top four people; the bottom three are below my sight.
I'm pretty sure, by their demeanors during the testimony of Glossman, that they are tired of hearing testimony. They look and act bored, and have probably all long ago made up their minds.
Mr. Glossman is evasive during the cross-examination by the plaintiff's attorney. The attorney is super aggressive, like in the movies: "Oh, you don't recall? Let see if I can refresh your memory." Ah, busted. This is all in regards to Marbury's cousin (Hassan), and whether he was accused of sexual harassment before he was let go. "He asked women working at Basketball City out on dates repeatedly", answers Glossman, with regards to what charges were made against Hassan.
The White Bald Guy in the juror is shaking his head at this. He's going anti-MSG, I guess. Oh, wait... he's now he's just dozing off. He's actually just totally bored by this lame cloak-and-dagger interoggation over nothing of any real significance.
The blonde and Asian women are taking diligent notes.
The Indian guy has never written anything on his notepad, ever. He just sits there with his arms folded, his notepad as new as the day it was given to him.
Look out now... the plaintiff's lawyer just referenced page 113 of Exhibit 115, at the 1:15 PM note... "does this refresh your recollection of the events." Yawn.
Oh snap... he just threw that up on the big screen for the jury to see, and got all Powerpoint on it! Slam!
Okay, back to sleep everyone.
White Bald Guy is very animated now... he's nodding or shaking his head at every response.
Some discussion now about the Last Man Standing program... "Steve Mills compliment you... look at Exhibit #103... it's an e-mail between you and Mills. Mills says "that sounds great" in response to your e-mail about blanketing flyers. Mr. Mills was very complimentary of you, right?" Where is this going?!?
White Bald Guy is back to sleep.
Cross-exam ends. The defense team gets a quick rebuttal. Mr. Green has presence. He talks slowly, powerfully, less accusative. Very simply.
Oddly enough, the witness (Glossman) is still defensive... "I can't recall the details" he responses to one question. Dude, relax... it's your friend, Mr. Green. The lawyers for Sanders are objecting a bit to this line of questioning. Basically, Glossman is describing how in November 2005 Ms. Sanders finally got around to asking him to document his phone call from Marbury a few months early. That's the famous phone call in which he answered at 9:00 in the evening, from Marbury... he wanted to know why Hassan couldn't get free parking, and thought he should get paid more. Glossman basically told him that he can't do anything about it, because Anucha is in charge of salaries. Marbury called her a "black bitch" during this call. So now, several months later, Anucha is asking him to document this for her, this mention of her has "a black bitch".
The Second Witness, Karen Buchholz:
She's the VP of Community Relations. She's in charge of the Knicks' truck that goes around giving out free stuff. She was hired by Anucha, and worked for her for 3.5 years. She also played 3 years of pro tennis after college!
Sh*t man, the person who should be suing for discrimination is the unathletic schlub in Accounting... this organization is fit, man. Seriously, even that guy in Accounting can probably bowl a 200 average or something.
She's also worked for the WNBA and the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Scott Layden:
They both worked together under Scott Layden. Anucha "had an excellent work relationship" with Scott. Always in each other's offices, sitting together at games... she got to play b-ball with players, and visited training camp, travel with the team (under Layden).
She was upset that Scott got fired (as opposed to most Knicks fans). She had "heard horror stories about Isiah" from other teams.
The Marbury Issue:
This is Anucha's underling, and best friend, talking now. This is who Karen is. She says that she had a problem with Marbury right away. It's that famous time she denied him tickets for his family. "This isn't Phoenix", was her famous response. She told Karen about it, explaining that Marbury came with baggage, namely his family.
White Bald Guy is asleep.
There's a woman in the front row with some crazy gizmo on her face - it's like those glasses Jedediah the Pilot in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome wears.
My pen dies, so I borrow one from the Court TV freelancer. I was tempted to ask the Indian guy for his, as he will probably never use it. Court TV freelancer looks vaguely familar.
Back to the case: The Judge does a good job of chiming in every once in a while to summarize a line of questioning, occasionally asking questions himself, and generally pushing things forward when they start getting slow.
The Budget Forecast:
The defense lawyers want to know what did Ms. Sanders say to Karen after the famous budget forecast meeting (the one that got her fired, supposedly):
"She yelled at me for not giving her enough information. Then she started crying. She called Dan in, and asked if we gave her enough. Then she started asking 'Why would James Dolan boil the ocean on these $40,000 courts when we've had great numbers all year long?' When Isiah can spend tons of money on limos?"
"It's because I'm a whistle-blower", she supposedly told Karen. Apparently she told on James Dolan's future son-in-law, along with Marbury's cousin, for forging the signature of Dan Glossman to get free parking.
Time-out: One, why are both Marbury's cousin and James Dolan's future son-in-law working in Anucha's department? Does anyone earned their job at MSG? That's a terribly nepotistic corporation. On the flip side, if your boss' son-in-law worked for you, would you blow the whistle on him for something like that? That's not integrity, that's foolishness! Never the less, Dolan and the Garden look poor again.
"She didn't think the Garden would fire her because she's a high ranking African-American woman", says Karen. "But she was afraid they would make her life miserable."
It's 2:45, and we're not going to get to the Intern, are we?
"I was really upset with the memo" about the Marbury incident, because "I felt I was being dragged into this. But she forced me to."
The memo is about both incidents - the ticket request one, and also a second incident in which Marbury refused to sign some jerseys.
White Bald Guy is awake, and checking out the crowd. He's slightly ADD. Obviously, I'm no better, either.
Sanders and Nix:
There were rumors "circulating the Garden" about Sanders and Jeff Nix, and that she didn't understand "why two close friends can't have dinner together without rumors".
The significance of this questioning is to get into the jury's head that there was some romance between the two, and that's maybe why Nix (another fired employee of the Garden) was so eager to testify on her behalf.
Karen explains how she helped Anucha get her lawyers (these very same ones!), and how her boss made her feel "very pressured" in this case, to help her out. She wanted to know that Karen had Anucha's back (according to Karen's testimony), and so she felt pressure to go with her to meet with the lawyers... Anucha told her to blow off a public appearance with Jerome Williams for it.
I think the defense here is trying to establish that Anucha was interfering with the Garden's investigation, or that basically she was "pressuring" her underlings to talk to her about the case, telling Karen what to say, and that Sanders was generally consumed by this case.
Karen testifies that Anucha called her on her cell phone, because the Garden office phone was bugged, the office was bugged, etc. "She made me feel real paranoid".
That Statement:
Mr. Nix also "chasticed" her for "supporting Isiah in the local papers". "How dare you make that statement in the Post or Daily News?" That statement was, when asked by a local reporter to comment on the lawsuit filed by Anucha, and whether she had anything positive to say about Isiah, she said "he's alway treated me with dignity and respect".
"You threw Anita under the bus", Nix supposedly said.
"It was the truth", I responded (according to Karen).
Strong finish. Bravo!
Cross-exam by the other defense lawyer yields a few tidbits:
-Isiah like giving away food on Thanksgiving.
-He was very rarely at the office (2 Penn Plaza) - only a handful of times in 3 years. He's alway at the practice site.
-Therefore she did not witness any interactions between Anucha and Isiah.
The Baby:
Karen took medical leave because "my partner was having a baby". There's a cheap women's tennis joke in there somewhere. Anyway, the HR staff informed her that she was entitled to 6 weeks off.
She only took four, because "Anucha told me to come back earlier, because 'Steve Mills has an issue with your lifestyle."
Has Isiah Thomas ever hugged you?
"Yes".
Kissed you on the cheek?
"Yes."
Is that objectionable to you?
"No."
SML opinion: This one we agree with, actually. I honestly never understood why the whole "No love today" story got any press. In most offices I've worked in - I've worked in a lot - male employees hug female employees when they travel with them, or something, and see them off-site. If I ran into you at the hotel lobby, I would hug you, say hi, ask how your trip was. So one day he hugs Anucha, only she doesn't want to be hugged (for whatever reason), and he responds "What, no love today?". That seems fairly innocuous to me.
Break Time.
Court TV Gal sums it up the best: "It's one set of croonies against another set of croonies, and it comes down to which set of croonies you believe."
I'll only add that the Garden looks like a bunch of morons with no professionalism. But despite that, Anucha just hasn't made a convincing case, either. She has hardly gather evidence that she was harassed sexually, and arguing that Dolan screamed at her doesn't do it for me, either. Bosses scream. Sh*t, I work in non-profit, and we have screaming bosses here... can you imagine in profit world? None of that constitutes an on-going harassment. But she has succeeded in making the Garden's foolishness well known.
Oh, remember that cheap joke about women's tennis? Twitchy lawyer guy turns to me and asks "what % of women's tennis players are lesbians?".
"I don't know, but it's a cliche, no?" I respond politely.
Uh-oh... Isiah just hugged his female lawyer. Don't let the jury see that! He's laughing and having a good time.
Okay, cross-exam and The Intern's testimony coming up tomorrow morning!
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Hey man, nice work there...that was a good read.
Just wanted to give you some insider insight I was given this morning, which isn't really all that interesting, but whatever...
My cousin works at MSG for one of the other teams that plays there (for anonymity's sake, I wont specify whether it's the Liberty or the Rangers), and he's said he's had to deal with Anucha in the past, and she was one of those people who always made things difficult for the other person. Like, even the simplest of interactions would be met with confrontation. I'm sure you know the type. You probably work with someone like that. I know I do...
He also said Isiah has a tendency to rub people the wrong way. Everyone except Dolan, apparently, who can't get enough of Isiah.
I had a former roomie call in "Ball Pain"
Yes, that is right...pain in the balls...and kept his job.
Torsion is a top-five call-out excuse. The only problem is that you can only use it twice.
A temp who worked at my office once called in "still drunk from last night". She got fired, but I had to admire her chutzpah.
Different work environments have different etiquettes. You're right the "no love today" comment can be innocuous. Personally, i have huggy and non huggy work relationships while letting the woman dictate the preference. Isiah saying "no love TODAY" suggests that they were huggy in the past. Unless of course, they were huggy in the past, he always initiated it, and she never liked it.
Still I need to hear that he stuck a finger up her ass or something before millions are handed over to Sanders.
Isiah saying "no love TODAY" suggests that they were huggy in the past
Exactly my thoughts! That's what I was discussing with my coworker... it would seem to indicate that it was acceptable at one time, but no longer. Or, as you suggested, that they were huggy in the past, but Anucha never liked it....
very nice job. Although, it's frowned upon in my office environment for co-workers to hug/kiss on the cheek. I don't think I've ever seen that.
Might just be because I live in the Midwest though.