V. Stiviano Sad NBA Banned Donald Sterling, Denies Being Owners Mistress

Since the Donald Sterling scandal, V.Stiviano, the woman at the center of the controversy, has said very little. On Tuesday, Stiviano’s attorney, Mac Nehoray, told The Times that she was “very saddened” by the NBA’s decision to ban him from the sport for life.

He says that the 31-year-old  “never wanted any harm to Donald”.

While it’s been widely assumed that Stiviano released the audio, she denies that she did, stating that “someone released it for money”, adding

My client is devastated that this got out.

He also insists that his client and Sterling never had a sexual or romantic relationship and descriptions of her as his mistress in the media and in a lawsuit filed by Sterling’s wife are erroneous.

She’s not the type of person everyone says.

The LA Times reports:

Stiviano’s lawyer said his client was a hard-working young woman who supported herself waitressing and volunteered helping crime victims before signing on to work as an “archivist” for Sterling. “She had no association with any rich people before this,” he said. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office confirmed that Stiviano did clerical work and helped explain legal procedures to victims as a volunteer in the agency’s Victim-Witness Assistance Program in 2010 and 2011.

[Los Angles Times]