His client is a New York cop who was injured during a private security gig at Madison Square Garden. He sued the Garden on behalf of the cop.
Now John Scola, a lawyer well known for representing local police officers, is banned from the high-profile arena and several others owned by the famously controlling James Dolan.
For years, Dolan openly excluded entire law firms from his venues if a single attorney was in any sort of legal dispute with the Garden; those bans would then be enforced by Dolan’s increasingly sophisticated facial recognition system. What wasn’t entirely clear was whether Madison Square Garden was continuing to grow its legal blacklist. A letter to Scola, dated April 30 and reviewed by WIRED, suggested this practice continues. “Any tickets to MSG Venues,” the letter reads, “are hereby revoked.”
The ban also highlights the fissures in the multilayered relationship between New York City’s public servants and its most iconic arena. As WIRED reported last month, MSG security functionally acted as a second, unsanctioned surveillance force in midtown Manhattan—without the New York Police Department’s formal permission. (NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani called this expansion beyond the Garden’s walls “deeply troubling,” and promised further investigation.)
Dolan says that the biometric surveillance system is in place to stop dangerous actors from entering his properties—”if you’re a terrorist, [the list] will say that’s a terrorist,” he once told the local Fox affiliate—but the NYPD hasn’t shared facial recognition or any other kind of data with the Garden. The Garden did, however, add a New York police officer’s photo to the many, many others in its facial recognition database, as WIRED reported. “New Yorkers should be able to go to a game or a concert without their rights being violated,” New York attorney general Letitia James told the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast in a statement. “My office is closely reviewing the latest reporting on Madison Square Garden surveillance tactics.”
On the other hand, the Garden does hire NYPD officers, through the city’s paid detail program, to augment its own security forces. That’s what happened in February of 2025, when a lightweight boxing match was being held at MSG’s then-named Hulu Theater. The audience was likely to be large and “requir[e] active crowd control,” according to the lawsuit, so the Garden brass figured they’d need eight off-duty cops to help. “Despite that determination,” the suit claims, “only two officers were actually present.” One of them was seven-year NYPD veteran John Przybyszewski.
At some point, an incident erupted near ringside.The rapper Lil Tjay seemed to spit in the face of a Garden security staffer who appeared to be trying to keep him from getting closer to the ring. Videos from the night show a chaotic scene. Lil Tjay’s bodyguards and entourage joined in the scuffle. According to the lawsuit, Przybyszewski claims he was knocked to the ground, pinned beneath several people.
Przybyszewski claims that when he got up, he was “in severe pain,” and was sent to the hospital in an ambulance. According to the lawsuit, “diagnostic imaging revealed significant cervical and lumbar spine injuries,” some of them “permanent.”
Przybyszewski blamed both the rapper and Garden officials. He sued Lil Tjay and Madison Square Garden. For a lawyer, he tapped Scola, who frequently represents NYPD officers in disputes with their bosses and the city. Scola filed his suit in February of this year. “Defendants made conscious operational decisions that placed Plaintiff directly in harm’s way. Those decisions caused his injuries,” the lawsuit claims.
Madison Square Garden did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment for this story. A lawyer who has represented Lil Tjay also did not respond to a request for comment.
Five weeks after Scola sued Madison Square Garden on behalf of his police officer client, the Garden announced a “Thank You, NYPD” event, featuring Cyndi Lauper and John Fogerty. The rapper Fat Joe and the comedian Tracy Morgan, both courtside fixtures at New York Knicks home games at the Garden, also performed.
According to his lawyer, Przybyszewski would like to go back to “paid detail” work, maybe even at the Garden. He liked some of the guys he worked with. And as a cop in Staten Island, he could use the extra money.
Scola, for his part, says he’s not mad about currently being banned from MSG. He’s originally from the Philadelphia area, and so wasn’t planning on seeing the New York Knicks play in the Garden during the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals. “It’s a little bit petty,” Scola says of the ban. “But I’m here to represent my client, and if representing my client means I can’t go to Madison Square Garden until they pay us money or we win in trial—well then, so be it.”
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