1997
“When are we going to meet? Got somebody to take the tickets? And, oh, by the way, do you have somebody for the threesome?” Marv Albert was persistent, prepping for a hotel liaison with an old friend, according to the accuser at Albert’s 1997 trial for forcible sodomy and assault. “Hey, do you have somebody lined up?” the broadcaster asked again later. “Keep trying to get somebody.” “Ah, I see you have nobody,” Albert said when she arrived alone. “Come in.” The voice of the Knicks and Rangers favored male-male-female arrangements with a well-endowed third, his accuser later testified, and when on that occasion she failed to deliver in D.C., he bit her repeatedly on the back and neck and forced her to perform oral sex. (He said the rough sex was consensual.)
That summer, weeks before his day in court, Albert’s name appeared in the black book of a murdered dominatrix—the kinks just kept coming. On his trial’s third day, a surprise witness testified that Albert sexually assaulted her in a hotel years earlier, wearing only women’s underwear and a garter belt, after calling the concierge to request help sending a fax. He allegedly bit her too, and she escaped only when she ripped off his hairpiece. The following day, plenty exposed, Albert pleaded guilty to assault and battery, avoiding jail time, but losing his jobs with NBC and MSG networks. (Both would rehire him by the decade’s end.) During a post-trial media redemption tour, a credulous Barbara Walters had the announcer’s fiancée describe their sex life. “I’d say it’s pretty ordinary,” she answered, to which Albert shot back, “Hey!”