Sports Illustrated published an article Tuesday night detailing alleged sexual misconduct by members of the Dallas Mavericks’ front office.
Former Mavericks president and CEO Terdema Ussery and former Mavs.com team beat writer Earl K. Sneed are accused of various instances of sexual harassment and misogynistic behavior.
Sneed was arrested on Mavericks’ property once following a domestic dispute, but continued to work for the team until being fired this week.
Some employees of the team felt that former human resources chief Buddy Pittman was unhelpful and unapproachable due to his habit of making his opinions on social and religious issues explicitly known.
The Sports Illustrated story stated: “Pittman’s overt social and religious leanings have a chilling effect on the willingness to approach him with sensitive workplace issues, say some former Mavericks employees, both male and female.”
The Sports Illustrated article goes on to say that no source alleged Mavericks owner Mark Cuban of being a “perpetrator,” but some found it hard to believe he didn’t know what was happening in his offices.
But when reached for comment by SI, Cuban said, “The only awareness I have is because I heard you guys were looking into some things…. Based off of what I’ve read here, we just fired our HR person. I don’t have any tolerance for what I’ve read. It’s wrong. It’s abhorrent. It’s not a situation we condone. I can’t tell you how many times, particularly since all this [#MeToo] stuff has been coming out recently, I asked our HR director, ’Do we have a problem? Do we have any issues I have to be aware of?’ And the answer was no.”
The organization released a statement Tuesday night. It said, in part, that an employee in charge of reviewing complaints was suspended pending an investigation and another employee, likely Sneed, was fired.
“The Mavericks organization takes these allegations extremely seriously,” the statement read. “Yesterday we notified the league office and immediately hired outside counsel to conduct a thorough and independent investigation. The investigation will focus on the specific allegations related to this former employee, and will look more broadly at our company’s workplace practices and policies.”
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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