UFC fighter Conor McGregor has been sued for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman after a 2023 NBA Finals game in Miami, according to ESPN’s Michael Rothstein.
The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday by a 49-year-old woman, asserts that McGregor “intentionally engaged in unlawful sexual contact” without “consent or permission” in a bathroom of the Kaseya Center on June 9, 2023, after Game 4 between the Miami Heat and Denver Nuggets. McGregor injured the Heat’s mascot during a skit at halftime, and the lawsuit also claims that arena staff committed gross negligence, in part by overserving him.
The woman filed an incident report with Miami’s police department on June 11 about the alleged sexual assault, though the Florida State Attorney’s Office elected not to pursue charges in October 2023.
McGregor began talking to the woman inside the Courtside Club, according to the lawsuit. When she left, a member of McGregor’s entourage met the woman, told her, “Conor told me to come get you” and then took her by the wrist, the lawsuit continues. The woman allegedly asked to be let go but was denied. According to the lawsuit, McGregor then grabbed her by the wrist, brought her into the bathroom, and led her into a stall.
Arena security and/or staff blocked the woman’s acquaintance from following them, and then McGregor assaulted the woman inside the bathroom stall, the lawsuit states.
The woman’s attorney, Jim Dunn, told ESPN that his client’s “main goal in filing this suit is to raise awareness and encourage others to report sexual assault.”
“After a thorough investigation at the time, the state’s attorney concluded that there was no case to pursue,” McGregor’s attorney, Barbara Llanes, said in a statement to ESPN. “Almost two years and at least three lawyers later, the plaintiff has a new false story. We are confident that this case too will be dismissed.”
The suit says that arena staff acted with gross negligence and “had chargeable knowledge of a heightened risk of battery being carried out” by McGregor but continued to serve him alcohol anyway. The man portraying Heat mascot Burnie later went to the hospital after McGregor punched him twice on the court during a halftime promotional routine for a pain relief spray.
“The special treatment of (McGregor) by allowing him to pour his own alcoholic drinks as well as the failure to cut (McGregor’s) access to alcoholic beverages off after he was overserved demonstrates a conscious disregard for the safety (of) patrons similarly situated to and including (the plaintiff),” the lawsuit says, according to Alex Schiffer of Front Office Sports.
The lawsuit is asking for medical treatment costs, compensatory damages, and other relief from the Heat and McGregor, per Rothstein.
A civil jury in Ireland found McGregor liable last November for sexually assaulting a woman in a Dublin hotel penthouse Dec. 9, 2018.
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