Knicks President Isiah Thomas sat alone in the study of his home and quietly wept the night before a bombshell sex-harassment lawsuit became a public scandal, his son says.
“He cried,” said Joshua Thomas, 17, recalling the emotional moment when he spotted his dad in his private home study with tears in his eyes.
The teen, who goes by Josh, said he glimpsed his father’s inner turmoil Tuesday night – the day a former Knicks executive filed a scathing lawsuit in Manhattan federal court accusing Thomas of calling her crude names and asking her for sex.
The threat of legal action had been brewing for weeks behind the scenes at Madison Square Garden. But it was on Tuesday night, after the suit became a reality, that Thomas found himself at the center of a swirling media storm. The scandalous headlines hit the next day.
Asked if his father seemed angry at accusations by Anucha Browne Sanders, who was fired as the team’s senior VP for marketing and business operations, that Thomas had cursed and belittled her when she rebuffed his romantic advances, Josh said, “No.”
He said his dad was wounded.
“He’s hurt,” the teen said.
He said his father “felt used, like a pawn.”
His mom, Lynn Thomas, took the explosive charges against her husband in stride, Josh said.
“She really just laughed it off,” the teen said. “He told her and she laughed.”
Thomas’ college sweetheart strongly reassured her kids that their dad was not the womanizing bully described by Browne Sanders.
“She told us, ‘Your father is a good man. We’ve been married for 20 years, and no one knows him like I do. I know when he’s telling the truth and I know when he’s lying.’ ”
The poised teen, who plays basketball and is applying to universities in Washington, D.C., briefly discussed the strain on their family after telephoning a Post reporter who had stopped by the Thomas home Friday night in a gated community in upstate Purchase.
He said his mother did not want to make any comments yet, “but she told me I could issue a statement on her behalf.”
“She wants to be strong for him and for the family,” he said. “She stands by him 100 percent, as do I and my sister.” His sister, Lauren, is 15.
Josh said he spent a tumultuous day at his father’s side Wednesday, the day Thomas held a press conference to deny the charges in Sanders’ suit. “He told me bad things happen to good people, but in the end the truth will prevail.”
Josh said his family has “no ill feelings” toward his dad’s accuser, a former college basketball player and mother of three, but called her charges “unbelievable.”
“Of course, we don’t believe it’s true,” he said. “I don’t want to believe anything negative about Anucha, but I know these allegations are false. I don’t know what her motivations are.”
He said the family was acquainted with Sanders, but had little contact with her – and that his father rarely mentioned her.
“He never said anything about Anucha,” he said. “Anucha was never a topic of discussion. They did not interact on a daily basis. She was in marketing, and he dealt with basketball.”
Josh said his family is coping with the controversy and media glare by “going about our business.”
“We’ve been through a lot as a family, ” he said. “We’ll get through this.”