Sports by Brooks--Sterling Solicited Prostitute’s Personnel Opinions

http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/sterling-solicited-prostitutes-personnel-opinions-29983

 

In support of its landmark 2009 discrimination case against current NBA team owner Donald Sterling, the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) submitted to federal court a sworn statement by Alexandra Castro.

(Sterling ‘consulted’ same woman he called a ‘prostitute’ on team personnel)

Castro, who was a past acquaintance of the NBA owner, included this characterization of her relationship with Sterling in her 2003 statement:

“During our relationship, Mr. Sterling consulted me on issues he was considering almost every day including, among others, whether he should hire Alvin Gentry to coach the Los Angeles Clippers (although I had no experience in such matters), how he should respond to requests by players for the Los Angeles Clippers for increases in their compensation (Mr. Sterling and I often had dinner at the Arena Club with agents for a number of players) … “

In the same case United States Attorneys also submitted a deposition of attorney Raymond Hersh, a founding partner of Los Angeles law firm Hersh, Mannis & Bogen who formerly represented Castro. His sworn testimony included the following about Castro’s relationship with Sterling:

“They had a relationship where she cooked, drove, cleaned, was consulted on remodeling apartments, who went to dinner with agents, who should be hired — she didn’t make the decision, she said, but she was consulted about who to hire in the Clipper organization and what should be done, what he was thinking.”

Four months after the U.S. Dept. of Justice submitted the sworn statements from Castro and Hersh to a federal court, along with a mountain of other evidence, NBA team owner Sterling agreed to pay the largest discrimination settlement in the history of United States jurisprudence.

So who is Alexandra Castro and why was Donald Sterling soliciting her opinions on player salaries and his next head coach hire for the Clippers?

In a 2003 sworn deposition, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling described Alexandra Castro under oath as ..

“.. a prostitute … she was a total freak and a piece of trash … “

In the same deposition Sterling described, while under penalty of perjury, his relationship with Castro ..

“It was purely sex for money, money for sex, sex for money, money for sex. The girl was providing sex for money.”

“I probably didn’t tell my wife .. maybe I did something morally wrong.”

Sterling’s sworn characterizations of Castro - and the exact nature of their relationship - are contained in 2003 Los Angeles Superior Court papers documenting a lawsuit brought by the NBA team owner against Castro.

During what court documents indicate was a relationship between Sterling and Castro from 1999-2002, the Los Angeles Clippers owner voluntarily transferred the title of a Beverly Hills home he owned to Castro and her mother.

After Castro spurned Sterling, ending their relationship, the Los Angeles NBA team team owner filed a lawsuit to get the house back.

The ensuing legal dispute, which effectively forced Castro to make sworn court statements about their relationship in defending herself against the billionaire tycoon’s litigation, ultimately resulted in her retaining the home.

Those same sworn statements about Sterling in Castro’s court response to his 2003 lawsuit were later used against the Los Angeles Clippers owner by the Dept. of Justice in the aforementioned federal discrimination case that cost the NBA team owner nearly $3 million.

And it was, again, those same sworn statements about Sterling in Castro’s court responses to his 2003 lawsuit that also revealed to NBA Commissioner David Stern that one of the league’s club owners solicited opinions on team personnel matters from a woman he claimed, under oath, was “a prostitute … total freak and a piece of trash.”

At least if you believe the United States Department of Justice.

http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/sterling-solicited-prostitutes-personnel-opinions-29983