Conor McGregor’s sexual assault accuser is setting her sights on the NBA, the Miami Heat and the Miami Police Department for ‘mishandling’ the aftermath of her alleged attack, her lawyer says.
Attorney Ariel Mitchell tells DailyMail.com that officials at the Heat and the NBA were scrambling to keep the June 10 incident quiet and offered the alleged victim hush money.
The NBA offered $100,000 to keep it quiet, according to a source. They rescinded the offer when the news broke.
Mitchell says both the Heat and the basketball league could be liable for what she claims happened to her client.
‘Some of the security guards who stood by when this happened were not McGregor’s. They were hired by the Heat,’ Mitchell said. ‘They decided to cater to a celebrity instead of protecting a young woman in trouble.’
Attorney Ariel Mitchell represents Conor McGregor’s rape accuser and told DailyMail.com that her client is setting her sights on the NBA and the Miami Heat
Footage shows McGregor’s sexual assault accuser sitting with the MMA fighter at a club table in the minutes after she claims he molested her in a bathroom
The pair can be seen holding drinks when the woman gestures. McGregor then says something inaudible before walking away
DailyMail.com is protecting the woman’s identity and not naming her because of the nature of the alleged crime.
Ariel Mitchell, the lawyer of a woman who has accused McGregor of sexual assault, spoke to DailyMail.com
Mitchell says the Miami police blew off the alleged victim when she tried to report the assault, hours after the alleged incident at the Miami Heat’s downtown arena.
Mike Bass, the NBA’s chief communications officer, told DailyMail.com that the league did not offer anything to the woman.
‘This claim is categorically false,’ he said.
Miami Heat spokesman Tim Donovan did not return a call and emails requesting comment.
According to Mitchell: ‘First, she went to the police precinct where she lives and there they told her to go to another precinct where this happened. So, that’s one rejection of a sexual assault victim.
‘Then, at the rightful precinct, she walked in shortly after 4.30pm and, half an hour later, she was walked out of the police station.’
What happened, Mitchell says, is that the detective summoned to the lobby of the precinct where the alleged victim reported her assault talked her out of filing a proper report.
‘He walked her out of the building in no time,’ Mitchell says. ‘The detective told her to hire an attorney before she files a police complaint. He told her: ‘If you file today, this will go viral.’ Of course, that convinced her to wait, and that’s not good for the investigation.’
Besides, Mitchell said, police admitting that a sexual violence report would go viral is a failure from the institution.
‘How would it go viral if police themselves did not report this to the media?’ Mitchell wondered out loud.
McGregor took a swing at Burnie, the Miami Heat mascot, during a break in Game 4 of the NBA Finals the night the alleged attack took place
The woman’s attorney sent this letter to McGregor this week detailing the alleged incident. He denies the allegations
Eventually, the alleged victim hired Mitchell who took her back to the police station June 14, four days after the incident.
‘They know what they did,’ Mitchell said when asked if her client intends on suing the Miami Police Department. ‘They turned her away. They turned away the victim of a sexual assault.’
The NBA offered $100,000 to keep this quiet, according to a source
Mitchell said her client surrendered the alleged victim’s clothes from the night of the alleged assault with what she described as ‘McGregor’s DNA’ on it.
‘Police didn’t even ask for it,’ Mitchell says. ‘I had to tell them to put the clothes in evidence.’
Miami Police officer Michael Vega, the department’s spokesman, declined to provide details and produce the incident report because he said the investigation is continuing.
He did, however, say that the serial number on the incident report shows a case open June 11.
‘We did open the case when the victim first came in,’ Vega said. ‘As it happens in many investigations, she had to come back for additional information. I can’t imagine that any officer or detective in this department would turn away the victim of a sex crime.’
It’s an incident that McGregor is denying ever happened.
Shortly after the end of the NBA Finals’ fourth game that saw the Denver Nuggets take the lead 3-1 against the Miami Heat, McGregor allegedly forced a young woman he had just met at the courtside club to a bathroom and sexually assaulted her with security guards posted outside to prevent anyone from walking in.
Once in the bathroom, she told police the MMA fighter, who is 5ft 9in and 157lbs with barely any body fat, forced her to perform oral sex on him and attempted to sodomize her without her consent.
McGregor, the defacto face of UFC, sat courtside for most of the game and even starred in what was to be a mid-game comedy bit with Burnie, the Heat’s mascot.
Instead of a mock fight with Burnie, a 7-foot-6 mascot with orange fur and a basketball for a nose, McGregor coldcocked the mascot and sent its occupant to the emergency room with injuries.
McGregor and his fiancée Dee Devlin alongside their three children; Conor Jr, Croia and Rian. They are expecting their fourth child together
McGregor, who is recovering from a broken leg and is scheduled to fight Michael Chandler in the fall, is expecting his fourth child with his fiancée, Dee Devlin.
Mitchell said her client would have been willing to ‘go home with (McGregor).’
However, when he walked out of the club area with his entourage and someone grabbed her client’s hand, Mitchell says, the young woman believed she was leaving the arena for a night out on the town and not for a quickie in a bathroom.
Mitchell says her client got home in the wee hours of June 10 and started thinking about the events at the arena.
‘She was upset about it,’ Mitchell said. ‘She had a talk with her family and she decided to go to the police.
Mitchell added her client left Miami over the weekend and is currently in an undisclosed location out of Florida as Mitchell started receiving what she calls ‘death threats.’
‘She’s had crying fits,’ Mitchell said about her client. ‘Her sanity is at risk here. So she decided to lea
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