PHOENIX (CN) - A former Arizona State athletics employee told a federal jury Tuesday that his termination from the university was retaliation after he reported a wealthy donor for sexual assault. 

David Cohen was fired from his role as a senior associate athletics director in August 2019, five months after he told his boss that a donor sexually assaulted his then-wife and two other women at a men's basketball game in Las Vegas. In those five months, Cohen says nothing was done about the accusations. 

"It was more important to placate or not confront the donor than it was to protect these three women who were harassed," Cohen's attorney Michael Perez said in his opening statement in what is expected to be a two-week jury trial. "My client was fired because my client would not let something be swept under the rug."

Defending the Arizona Board of Regents, the governing body for all public universities in the state, attorney Robert McKirgan said Cohen's termination had nothing to do with what he reported, but instead was based on performance issues that had been ongoing for some time. He said Cohen was given "second chances, third chances, fourth chances to address a number of issues in the workplace." 

Before March 25, 2019, Perez described Cohen as a model employee, having earned regular raises and bonuses without any negative performance reviews.

"What changed is he was a good person who demanded ASU be accountable," the Perez Vaughn & Feasby associate told the 8-member jury panel.

Ten days earlier, Cohen's wife Kathy Cohen had told him after a basketball game that she was inappropriately touched by a donor named Bart Wear.

"He grabbed ahold of me, put his hands on my waist, ran his hands up my body and left them on my breasts and said 'wow, Dave is very lucky to have you,'" she said from the witness stand Tuesday afternoon. At the same game, she said two other women, including Leslie Hurley, wife of head basketball coach Bobby Hurley, told her that Wear inappropriately touched them, as well. 

David Cohen took the complaint to Athletic Director Ray Anderson on March 25, having waited until the basketball season concluded at the request of Leslie Hurley.

"Ray Anderson said 'I'll handle it,'" Perez recounted. "For the next five months, nothing is done."

Perez said Cohen repeatedly asked Anderson to take action and went to others in the athletics department and to the head of Human Resources, but still nothing was done. In May, Anderson took Wear on an all-expenses paid golf trip to Pebble Beach, and Wear continued to enjoy free tickets to sports games and nearly unlimited access to ASU facilities, events and team practices. 

A month after he received a $100,000 bonus, one of the largest to be given to anyone in his department, ASU placed Cohen on administrative leave on Aug. 15, 2019, and eventually fired him in December of that year. 

It was only after Cohen was terminated that ASU publicly acknowledged the accusations and banned Wear from all events, admitting that the issue "could have been resolved in a quicker time frame."

After David Cohen was fired, Kathy Cohen said she was disappointed to see that Wear was still invited to football games in September. 

Kathy Cohen cried as she wrapped up on the witness stand, blaming herself for her former husband's termination. She said it took David at least six months to find a new job, which damaged their marriage and led to divorce. 

McKirgan pointed out that Kathy Cohen is entitled to half of whatever financial recovery that stems from the lawsuit, which her husband filed against the Arizona Board of Regents in July 2021. He suggested that her financial interest in the case would taint her testimony, but she said she has no interest in the financial outcome. 

In his opening statement, McKirgan, of Papetti Samuels and Weiss, said much more was at play behind the scenes that resulted in David Cohen's termination. 

In 2017, the university found that Cohen took $20,000 to sit on the board of Vivid Seats, which contracted with ASU to sell tickets, causing a conflict of interest. In 2018, McKirgan said Cohen was privately reprimanded by the Pac-12 athletic conference for "unprofessional, aggressive behavior" at a basketball game. 

In 2019, McKirgan said that multiple athletics employees complained in their yearly reviews that Cohen was aggressive and displayed patterns of bullying. Anderson reportedly told Cohen in June 2019 that he was spending too much time on basketball ticketing and ignoring other responsibilities like football and swimming. 

In August 2019, "Mr. Cohen becomes insubordinate," McKirgan said. Anderson at the time had already been restructuring the department starting in February of that year, and the changes combined with his poor performance led to Cohen's termination, McKirgan said.

McKirgan blamed Cohen for the sexual assault not being investigated sooner. If he wanted more swift action, McKirgan said, Cohen should have reported the incident to the school's Title IX director rather than rely on Anderson to confront Wear himself. 

Ralph Shangraw, former CEO of ASU Enterprise Partners, took the stand at the end of the day, and will continue to testify Wednesday morning. Shangraw knew of the accusations and the report made to Anderson, and said he spoke to Anderson about it over lunch in the late spring. 

Source: Courthouse News Service