MSG intern had backseat sex with Stephon MarburyBY Thomas Zambito and DAVE GOLDINER DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, September 26th 2007, 12:16 AM
Intern Kathleen Decker testifies for the defense in the Isiah Thomas sexual harassment trial.
'I wasn't forced to do anything,' Decker testified.
A pretty Madison Square Garden intern testified yesterday she willingly jumped into an SUV with Stephon Marbury for a quick sex romp.
Kathleen Decker also acknowledged she landed a full-time job with the Knicks soon after - and got a big promotion six weeks ago as the $10 million federal sex harassment suit of fired exec Anucha Browne Sanders approached.
Decker, 24, said she never tried to hide the one-night stand and suggested she was being used as a pawn in Browne Sanders' suit.
"I wasn't forced to do anything," Decker testified. "I wasn't drunk. I was in control."
Decker recounted meeting Marbury outside a Mount Vernon strip club where she and some fellow MSG interns went after work in 2005.
"It was just something to do," she said.
The All-Star point guard told Decker he was leaving and urged her to get into the backseat, where they later had sex, she said.
"He asked me am I going to get into the truck," said Decker, a slim St. John's graduate who wore a white blouse and black pantsuit to court. "And I got in."
In late 2005, Decker claimed, Browne Sanders summoned her to a "very bizarre" meeting where she aggressively questioned the intern about the tryst.
Decker, who described Browne Sanders as very "judgmental," said the executive nudged her to dish dirt on Marbury and asked why she went to the Westchester strip club in the first place, Decker said.
"I told her what happened because I felt pressured to," Decker said.
She was one of eight employees who took the witness stand yesterday to back up the Garden claim that Browne Sanders couldn't handle her high-pressure job.
The results of her testimony were clearly mixed.
She testified that Browne Sanders was a nightmare boss who repeatedly made her feel "so inferior and so unimportant."
Later, she reluctantly admitted writing a card in which she called the Marbury fling a "mistake" and thanked Browne Sanders for being "incredibly supportive and understanding."
"I've learned from that mistake and will not let anything like that happen (ever) again," Decker wrote in the Hallmark card adorned with hearts and flowers.
Sometime after her night out with Marbury, the intern won a full-time job with the Knicks. She testified she landed a big promotion at MSG six weeks ago as the court date for the explosive case loomed.
Garden employees and bodyguards formed a protective cordon around Decker as she walked through a phalanx of reporters and photographers outside the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan.
Browne Sanders is seeking to use the intern's sex revelations - Decker also conceded she slept with Marbury's cousin - as evidence that the Garden tolerated an anything-goes, animal-house atmosphere.
Earlier, a top MSG executive accused Browne Sanders of dropping the F- and B-words around colleagues - the same foul language that she claims Knicks president and coach Isiah Thomas berated her with.
"She would use the word f--k regularly, often," John Cudmore, the Garden's senior vice president for finance, testified.
Garden boss James Dolan is expected to take the stand today in an effort to fight off the explosive suit, which claims he axed Browne Sanders after she complained about being harassed by Thomas.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/2007/09/25/2007-09-25_msg_intern_had_backseat_sex_with_stephon.html#ixzz0vx2Vddc4
8/7/2010 3:29 PM
