Reply #23: OK

[Mobius]

September 26, 1997


Albert Enters Plea of Guilty and Is Dismissed by NBC

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Marv Albert, whose staccato play-by-plays helped make him one of television's most distinctive and ubiquitous sportscasters, ended a trial filled with embarrassing testimony about his sex life by pleading guilty on Thursday to a misdemeanor count of assault and battery.

Hours later, he was dismissed by NBC, where he was a leading football and basketball announcer. He also resigned from MSG, the cable network that broadcasts games of the New York Knicks and Rangers.

Albert was charged with assaulting a 42-year-old Virginia woman in an Arlington hotel room last Feb. 12


SNIP

The case became the latest celebrity trial, featuring the requisite high-powered lawyer, saturation media coverage, instant analysis by a new industry of legal commentators and a steady stream of sensational details. This time, a courtroom in suburban Virginia became the stage for a tawdry drama, in which Albert's fiancee, parents, and children listened as two women described being attacked and bitten in sexual encounters in hotel rooms. The women said Albert asked them to bring along a third participant, and, in one instance, he was described as wearing women's underwear.



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