Dolan gesture of glee after Oakley booted
KNICKS OWNER James Dolan committed an intentional foul against Charles Oakley by ordering the former star’s ugly ejection from Madison Square Garden last year — then giving a “thumbs up” to the security guards who booted him, court documents say, citing new arena security footage obtained by the Daily News.
Moments before the beloved Knick’s confrontation was broadcast on national TV, Dolan is seen chatting with a security official and then giving him a signal, Oakley’s attorney Douglas Wigdor wrote in new papers filed Wednesday.
“From the moment he takes his seat Mr. Oakley can be seen laughing and casually interacting with fans. Nowhere is there evidence that he was acting as belligerently as (Dolan and MSG) falsely claim,” papers submitted by Wigdor read.
“During a stoppage in play, defendant Dolan can be seen summoning a security guard and speaking to him at length ... Within seconds of defendant Dolan’s gesture, the security guard gathered other security personnel who proceeded to surround Mr. Oakley and throw him out of the arena.”
Once the notorious melee has ended and security guards take Oakley, 54, into a tunnel to be arrested, Dolan appears to give a “thumbs up,” according to papers.
Dolan’s company released a statement Thursday afternoon dismissing the Daily News’ video and the plaintiff’s claims as “nothing more than Oakley’s latest attempt to distract from the real reasons why he was ejected.
“We like the videos — they show what actually happened, which is why Oakley’s lawyer continues to fight to exclude them from the court case,” the statement from the Madison Square Garden Co. continued.
“As opposed to the edited and manipulated video posted by Oakley’s counsel, we filed the entire unedited video with the Court months ago. As we’ve stated before, we believe this suit has no merit and should be dismissed.”
Contrary to the statement, the clip was not provided by Oakley’s counsel. It’s public record and was obtained through court records, then edited by The News to highlight the arguments in Thursday’s motion.
“As the Daily News has made clear, the video is a matter of public record and was not ‘edited and manipulated’ by our firm as defendants falsely claim,” Wigdor said in a statement to The News. “We find it deeply offensive that James Dolan would purposefully malign our firm in the same way he did our client.”
The entire video from this new angle, which was submitted by Dolan’s defense team in connection with Oakley’s lawsuit, was also viewed by The News.
As Oakley has claimed and the video confirms, he never got up from his seat before being confronted by security.
Testimony from anonymous Garden employees — submitted by the Garden — allege Oakley lashed out with multiple derogatory obscenities before and during the scuffle on Feb. 8, 2017, including telling one guard, “You got all those f---ing security people looking at me. I don’t know what the f--- they’re looking at, but they’re getting on my f---ing nerves.”
The video, however, offers few, if any, revelations about Oakley’s role in the incident — there’s no audio to verify what he said to security in the leadup to his ejection.
But the viewpoint on Dolan is new and Wigdor believes it validates an argument central to their lawsuit: that Oakley was targeted because of a rift with the owner, not because his conduct warranted being ejected from the Garden just eight minutes after sitting down.
Oakley was arrested for assault and the charge was dropped in August as part of a deal requiring he stay out of trouble for six months and away from the Garden for a year.
He then filed his defamation and discrimination suit in September, seeking unspecified damages.