Isiah Thomas sexually harassed executive

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas sexually harassed a female executive of the basketball team, a jury decided on Tuesday, and it awarded her $11.6 million in punitive damages from team owner Madison Square Garden and its chairman James Dolan.

The seven-person federal jury ruled that Anucha Browne Sanders, former marketing executive for the NBA team, was wrongly fired in retaliation for her complaints of sexual harassment.

"What I did here, I did for every working woman in America," Browne Sanders told reporters outside the courtroom after the payout was determined.

Browne Sanders, 44, was fired in February 2006 from her $260,000 a year job as a Knicks vice president, an action she said was in response to her sexual harassment complaint against Thomas.

She had accused Thomas of making unwanted advances toward her and subjecting her to verbal insults, which she said began in 2004 after he joined the team as club president. She had asked the court for $10 million in damages.

Thomas insisted afterward that he was innocent and vowed to appeal the verdict.

"I will appeal this and I remain confident in the man that I am, and what I stand for, and the family that I have," he said.

"I'm innocent. I'm very innocent. And I did not do the things that she accused me in this courtroom of doing."

Jurors were not able to decide whether Thomas should pay Browne Sanders damages, so a mistrial on that count was declared by U.S. District Court Judge Gerard Lynch.