A civil judge has denied a petition to have Mavericks owner Mark Cuban deposed as part of a racial discrimination complaint, citing a need to depose other figures closer to the alleged incident and present more evidence before such a deposition could be warranted.
Former American Airlines Center employee Michelle Newsome alleges racial discrimination and wrongful termination and wanted to question Cuban.
On Friday, her attorney called a current American Airlines Center employee, Tony Cooper, to testify regarding an incident involving a noose that was left in a closet at the American Airlines Center.
"I walked into the IT closet and saw hanging from the wall was a noose," Cooper said.
Cooper said hours went by with multiple managers allegedly seeming to brush off the incident before Cooper talked to Mark Cuban and took him to personally see it.
"So I took him into the closet and showed it to him and he looked at it, shook his head, rolled his eyes, walked over, took it down, walked out of the room and threw the door and threw it in the trash and went to his suite," Cooper said.
Also called to testify was former Mavericks Senior Account Executive Chris Hyde, who according to reports in the Dallas Morning News allegedly watched pornography on his work computer as part of a pattern of inappropriate behavior.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
But multiple questions directed by Newsome's attorney toward Hyde were objected to by the defense and sustained by the judge because of lack of relevance.
