A sordid tale of verbal abuse and sexual harassment concluded today when a jury found the New York Knicks' head coach, Isiah Thomas, guilty in a lawsuit brought by former Madison Square Garden employee Anucha Browne Sanders. She was awarded $11.6 million in damages.

The jury ruled Thomas did not have to personally pay punitive damages, but Browne Sanders was entitled to punitive damages from Madison Square Garden (MSG), a co-defendant in the case said.

Over the course of the three-week trial, Browne Sanders, who was fired from her $260,000-a-year job in 2006, presented Madison Square Garden as "Animal House" in sneakers, where crude remarks, sexism and crass language were an accepted part of the culture, according to The Associated Press. The headlines of the case dominated the back pages of New York tabloids as allegations ran the gamut of Thomas going from offering unwanted advances to later referring to the former senior vice president of marketing and business operations as a "bitch" and a "ho." Thomas also stirred up a tempest with his videotaped remarks about the racial dynamics of calling a woman "a bitch" when Thomas suggested he would be more troubled hearing a white man calling a black woman a "bitch" than if a black man said the same thing, reports USA Today.