{"id":814099,"date":"2026-08-15T04:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T04:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/814099\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T04:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T04:22:09","slug":"judge-sides-with-msg-against-oakley-says-the-former-knick-couldnt-prove-he-was-assaulted-at-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/814099\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge sides with MSG against Oakley, says the former Knick couldn’t prove he was assaulted at game"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A judge sided with Madison Square Garden in its lengthy legal battle with Charles Oakley on Friday, saying that the former New York Knicks<\/a> All-Star had not proven he was assaulted when he was removed from a game he attended in 2017.<\/p>\n

Oakley was handcuffed and arrested after an altercation with security while sitting near owner James Dolan during a game against the Los Angeles Clippers. Oakley initially brought a number of claims against MSG that were dismissed in February 2020. After appeal, Oakley’s assault-and-battery claim remained.<\/p>\n

But Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the Southern District of New York ruled that Oakley \u201chas produced no evidence to support his claim that he was assaulted by MSG security guards.\u201d<\/p>\n

MSG had pointed to video evidence and previous testimony that Oakley was not assaulted.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor more than nine years, Mr. Oakley\u2019s lawyers have pursued claims they knew were false. Those claims have now been dismissed by the Court in their entirety \u2014 for the third time,\u201d MSG said in a statement. \u201cWe are pursuing legal action against Douglas Wigdor, and his unscrupulous law firm, to hold them accountable for years of frivolous litigation and their blatant abuse of the judicial system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oakley was a beloved Knicks forward in the 1990s, and he remains one of the few former players who has remained absent from MSG during the team’s recent playoff runs, culminating with this year’s NBA<\/a> championship. <\/p>\n

His removal from the game was a jarring scene, but Sullivan ruled that Oakley hadn’t proven it was done with excessive force.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmple evidence \u2014 including videos from multiple angles and the unanimous testimony of every witness (even, to some extent, Oakley himself) \u2014 shows that Oakley had a reasonable opportunity to depart the Garden, that he instead resorted to physical violence, and that he was never pushed to the ground,\u201d Sullivan wrote.<\/p>\n

The judge added that \u201cno rational jury could conclude that Oakley reasonably feared himself at risk of wrongful physical contact \u2014 let alone that MSG intended to stir such an apprehension.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wigdor still hopes a jury will get a chance to rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are disappointed with the Court\u2019s rulings,\u201d he wrote in an email. \u201cWe believe there are conflicting accounts and only a jury can decide what exactly happened. We are hopeful that the Second Circuit will agree for a third time and remand the case for an immediate jury trial.\u201d <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full NBA coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A judge sided with Madison Square Garden in its lengthy legal battle with Charles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2971,355,361,99],"class_list":["post-814099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}