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LAWYER SAYS RUTGERS PLAYER PRESSURED TO DROP IMUS SUIT: But the baller, Kia Vaughn, says it's not true.
*A lawyer who represented a Rutgers University women's basketball player claims the team's coach and others put pressure on her to drop a lawsuit against Don Imus over his sexist and racist comment about the team, reports the Associated Press.
Junior Kia Vaughn dropped her slander and defamation suit in September against Imus, who called Rutgers' players "nappy headed hoes" during a broadcast, and was subsequently fired amidst public outrage. A spokeswoman for the attorney said then that Vaughn wanted to focus on her education and basketball.
But in a Sept. 4 e-mail and an Aug. 17 letter sent to school officials before the suit was dropped, Vaughn's attorney, Richard B. Ancowitz, said the head coach, C. Vivian Stringer, and others put pressure on his client and other players not to go after Imus in court.
Vaughn maintains her original explanation for dropping the lawsuit, telling AP Wednesday: "Coach Stringer didn't pressure me into the lawsuit or out of it. It was a personal decision, basically because I need to focus on school, and basketball and everything else.
"Coach Stringer, I love her. She's a motherly figure. I know that she would never tell me anything that would hurt me."
In his letter, obtained by The AP from Rutgers through a public records request, Ancowitz said Stringer appeared angry with Vaughn for pursuing the lawsuit and intimidated other players and their parents into not suing.
"It seems quite clear that Coach Stringer and her surrogates continue to discourage both my client and my client's teammates from taking action to protect and/or enforce their legal rights," Ancowitz wrote in the Sept. 4 e-mail to the university's vice president and general counsel, Jonathan Alger.
In the Aug. 17 letter, Ancowitz described a telephone conversation between himself, Stringer, Vaughn and Vaughn's mother.
"She (Stringer) began by telling us and specifically Kia that the bringing of Ms. Vaughn's action was wrong and saying that she was angry," he wrote. The coach "accusingly told Kia it would have a negative effect on the coming basketball season."
Although Ancowitz said he never intended for his correspondence to be made public, he stood by his comments Thursday.
"I honestly cannot negate what I have described in these letters because the events described therein are factual and accurate," he said.
