10.24
On October 24, 1997, all sexual assault charges are dismissed against Marv Albert, after the sportscaster agrees to get counseling and stays out of trouble for a year. According to Vanessa Perhach, Albert had invited her to his room in the Ritz Carlton Hotel on February 12, 1997, after announcing an NBA game. He then purportedly bit her on her back after she refused his request for three-way sex. Albert, who met Perhach at the Miami Hilton where she worked in 1986, resigned from his job at Madison Square Garden and was fired from NBC after pleading guilty to assault and battery. During the trial, which began on September 22, 1997, the defense brought into evidence a taped conversation in which Perhach appeared to have offered a friend of hers money in exchange for testifying against Albert. Later, however, the prosecution introduced Patricia Masten, another hotel employee who claimed that the sportscaster had bit her on two separate occasions and had tried to force her to perform oral sex. According to the emergency room nurse that treated her, Perhach had bite marks on her back, including one that broke the skin, and a forensic dentist testified that he had made a definitive match between molds made from Albert’s teeth and the marks on Perhach’s back. On July 15, 1998, Albert was rehired by the Madison Square Garden Network to anchor MSG Sports Desk, and as the radio play-by-play announcer for the New York Knicks.
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for CrimeMagazine.com and is the author of Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949.
