Charles Oakley Penalized Over Lost Texts in MSG Removal Case (1)

Ex-NBA star Charles Oakley was sanctioned by a federal court Wednesday for failing to preserve five years of text messages amid his litigation against Madison Square Garden over his ejection from a Knicks game as a spectator.

Judge Richard Sullivan said he’d instruct jurors at a trial that they can infer the messages were unfavorable to Oakley, a former New York Knicks star who’s televised 2017 removal from the arena led to a public battle between him and Knicks owner James Dolan.

“Oakley’s loss of his text messages cannot be credibly explained as involving anything other than bad faith,” Sullivan, of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, wrote. Oakley’s explanation that he broke his phone and then upgraded several times while failing to back up his messages “is simply not credible.”

The judge also ordered Oakley to pay MSG’s attorneys’ fees in connection with their motion for sanctions over the missing messages.

But Sullivan rejected MSG’s request to toss Oakley’s complaint against the company, saying that was too drastic a remedy for Oakley’s failure to preserve the messages. That keeps alive the possibility of a trial between a New York basketball icon and the Knicks’ famed arena after seven years of litigation.

The judge also denied MSG’s request to preclude Oakley from claiming at a trial he was pushed by security or acted in self-defense.

In a seperate decision Wednesday, Sullivan denied Oakley’s dueling request for sanctions against MSG. Oakley said the company failed to preserve notes prepping Dolan for an interview about the ejection, among other evidence. “There is nothing in the record to suggest that those notes pertained to this case as opposed to any other topic covered during the interview,” the court said.

Oakley initially sued Dolan, Madison Square Garden Co., MSG Networks Inc. and MSG Sports & Entertainment LLC in 2017. The case was twice thrown out by a federal trial judge, only to be reinstated both times on appeal. Only the assault and battery claims against the MSG defendants remain.

An “adverse-inference” instruction at trial is merited because Oakley had a duty to keep messages related to the removal after he first sued, the judge said. He acknowledged some of the texts between 2017 and 2022 pertained to his ejection from the game.

MSG has “amply demonstrated that it was prejudiced by the loss of Oakley’s text messages,” which could have supported their defenses that he was appropriately removed from the stadium over his behavior.

Oakley spent 19 years in the NBA from 1985 to 2004, including a decade with the Knicks. He earned a spot on the All-Star team in the 1993-94 season and helped lead the Knicks to the NBA Finals that year.

The suit focuses on Feb. 8, 2017, the night Oakley was escorted out by security as the Knicks were playing the Los Angeles Clippers. The ejection was televised.

At the time, the Knicks claimed Oakley was behaving in an “abusive” manner. Oakley’s denied this and said in his complaint he was “unobtrusively taking his seat” when Dolan “directed security to forcibly remove him” in order to “humiliate” him. “Despite his immense contributions to the franchise, Mr. Oakley was treated like a common criminal,” his suit says.

Wigdor LLP and Petrillo Klein & Boxer LLP represent Oakley. Randy M. Mastro and King & Spalding LLP represent MSG.

The case is Oakley v. MSG Networks Inc., S.D.N.Y., 1:17-cv-06903, 7/23/25