Mark Cuban apologizes to Mavericks sexual harassment victims: 'I'm just sorry I didn't see it'

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban apologized on Wednesday to women who were sexually harassed while working for the organization, following the release of a report that detailed numerous cases of improper conduct over the span of 20 years.

The independent investigation took seven months to complete, and found, among other things, that former team president Terdema Ussry made inappropriate comments and forcibly touched and kissed 15 female employees, while former ticket sales executive Chris Hyde made unwanted sexual advances, viewed and shared pornographic images, and made unsolicited comments of a sexual nature, The Dallas Morning News reports. The report found no wrongdoing by Cuban, who has owned the Mavericks for 18 years, but stated he made "significant errors of judgment."

"This is not something that just is an incident and then it's over," Cuban told ESPN. "It stays with people. It stays with families. And I'm just sorry I didn't see it. I'm just sorry I didn't recognize it." Cuban said he "wasn't as focused on the business as I should have been," and "never in my wildest dreams did I think that this was happening right underneath me." Cuban will make a $10 million donation to organizations that support domestic violence victims and women in the workplace, and said he has to "recognize I made a mistake, learn from it, and then try to fix it."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.