Jury Awards Sanders $11.6 Million

The New York Knicks haven’t exactly been known for spending their money wisely over the past decade, and yesterday’s punitive damages verdict in the Isiah Thomas sexual harassment suit won’t help that image or their wallets. The jury ordered that the Knicks must [pay the defendant], Anucha Browne Sanders, $11.6 million for harassment and for her wrongful termination, after team executives turned a blind eye to her troubles and then fired her from her $260,000-a-year job for complaining.

The decision follows a salacious three-week trial that began to culminate with yesterday morning’s [guilty verdict](/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=92894365) for Thomas and the MSG owners, and then finished when the jury returned in the afternoon to dole out the amount owed. Following the jury’s decision, Sanders praised the justice system. “What I did here, I did for every working woman in America,” she said. “And that includes everyone who gets up and goes to work in the morning, everyone that aspires to work in a corporate environment.”

On the other side, Thomas expressed his dismay with the decision but assured everyone that he was innocent and that he will continue to fight. “I’m innocent, very innocent, and I did not do the things she has accused me in this courtroom of doing,” he 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.” Of course, Thomas also assured us that he’d turn the Knicks into winners, and so far, he has yet to deliver on that promise, so I’m more than a little skeptical about his claim of innocence.