Testimony Stuns Court Albert, Wearing Women’s Underwear, Allegedly Bit New Prosecution Witness

A surprise witness testified Wednesday that Marv Albert, wearing white panties and a garter belt, bit her three years ago in a Dallas hotel room during a struggle that left her holding the sportscaster’s hairpiece.

Patricia Masden’s story was the most shocking yet in Albert’s forcible sodomy and assault trial, drawing gasps from spectators but not even a smile from the jurors. Albert is not on trial in connection with the alleged incident, but Circuit Judge Benjamin N.A. Kendrick let her tell her story to show what prosecutors say was a pattern of conduct.

Masden said she got to know Albert well during the early 1990s when he traveled with basketball’s New York Knicks and she was the VIP liaison for Hyatt Hotels. She said he summoned her to his room in Dallas in 1994, saying he needed help sending a fax.

When she entered Albert’s room and announced her presence, she heard him say, “Come on in.”

“I turned around and I saw him standing there. I saw him standing there in white panties and garter belt. He was exposed and he was aroused,” she said.

She said she stood there in shock as Albert approached her and began to rub against her.

“He told me he was tense and he needed some relief,” Masden said. “Then he bit the back of my neck and he pushed me. He tried to push my head down to his crotch area.”

As she tried to push Albert off her, she said, “I went to grab his hair and his hair lifted off. He immediately put his hands on his hair and I ran out of the room.”

During the testimony, the 54-year-old NBC play-by-play man leaned back in his chair and put one hand to his chin, his face impassive. His fiancee, ESPN producer Heather Faulkiner, leaned forward and gripped the back of the bench in front of her but showed no emotion. Albert’s daughter, Denise, looked pained.

As surprising as that encounter was, Masden said, it wasn’t the first time she had been bitten by Albert.

That came in 1993, when Albert invited her to a party he said he was having with the Knicks in his Miami hotel room. When she arrived, there was no one there but Albert.

“We were drinking wine and talking, and he started asking me weird sexual questions,” Masden said. A moment later, she said, Albert leaned over and kissed her and bit her on the lower lip. “He asked me if I was interested in a menage a trois,” specifically, three-way sex with another man.

He also asked for oral sex and she refused. Then, he kissed her on the neck and the kiss turned into a bite, she said.

Realizing that no one else would be attending the party, she abruptly left.

Masden actually told her story twice, the first time outside the presence of the jury, touching off a furious battle over whether her testimony should be admitted.

Earlier, Jonathan Gold, an emergency room nurse, testified that the woman who brought the criminal charges went to an emergency room at National Hospital with 18 to 20 bite marks on her back.

The first of several forensics experts took the stand later to say that DNA from semen taken from the woman’s lip, chest and underwear was linked to Albert. Virginia State Police forensics expert Karen Ambrozy said the chances that the DNA was left there by someone other than Albert were 1 in 2.6 billion.