New York Police Officer Injured In Boxing Match. Now Madison Square Garden Is Closing Its Advocate
His client a New York police officer who was injured during a security gig at Madison Square Garden. He sued Garden on behalf of the police officer.
Now John Scola, a lawyer best known for representing the local police, has been banned from the stadium along with several others managed by the legendary James Dolan.
For years, Dolan has openly excluded all law firms from his estates if a single lawyer is in any kind of legal dispute with Ngadi; that restriction will then be enforced by Dolan’s increasingly sophisticated facial recognition system. What wasn’t entirely clear was whether Madison Square Garden was continuing to expand its official blacklist. The letter to Scola, dated April 30 and reviewed by WIRED, suggested the practice should continue. “Any tickets to MSG venues,” the letter reads, “are hereby cancelled.”
The ban also highlights the breakdown of the multi-layered relationship between New York City’s public servants and its iconic arena. As WIRED reported last month, MSG security has operated as a second, unauthorized patrol force in midtown Manhattan—without official permission from the New York Police Department. (NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani called this expansion beyond the Garden walls “deeply troubling,” and promised further investigation.)
Dolan says a biometric surveillance system is in place to prevent dangerous actors from entering his premises—“if you’re a terrorist, [the list] you’re going to say that’s terrorism,” he once told Fox’s local affiliate—but the NYPD didn’t share facial recognition or any other kind of data with the Garden. However, the Garden added the New York police officer’s photo to one of many, many in its facial recognition database, as WIRED reported. Letitia James said Pablo Torre finds out podcast in a statement. “My office is carefully reviewing the latest reports regarding surveillance tactics at Madison Square Garden.”
On the other hand, the Garden hires NYPD officers, through the city’s paid intelligence program, to increase its security forces. That’s what happened in February of 2025, when a lightweight boxing match was held at MSG’s Hulu Theater at the time. The audience would likely be large and “demanding[e] effective crowd control,” according to the lawsuit, so Garden brass realized they would need eight off-duty cops to help. One of them was seven-year NYPD veteran John Przybyszewski.
At one point, an incident broke out near ringside. Rapper Lil Tjay was seen spitting in the face of a Garden security guard who was apparently trying to stop him from approaching the ring. Videos from the night show the chaos. Lil Tjay’s bodyguards and his entourage joined the fray. According to the lawsuit, Przybyszewski says he was beaten to the ground and arrested under several people.
Przybyszewski says that when he stood up, he was “in severe pain,” and was sent to the hospital by ambulance. According to the lawsuit, “diagnosis images revealed severe cervical and lumbar spine injuries,” some of which were “permanent.”
Przybyszewski blamed the rapper and Garden officials. He sued Lil Tjay and Madison Square Garden. For a lawyer, he contacted Scola, who often represents NYPD officers in disputes with their superiors and the city. Scola filed his lawsuit in February of this year. “The defendants made unwise decisions that put the plaintiff at risk. Those decisions caused his injuries,” the lawsuit said.
