Mark Cuban on Wednesday took full responsibility for the decision to continue employing a writer for the Dallas Mavericks’ website for multiple years after two separate cases of domestic violence. The Mavericks owner acknowledged that while he didn’t know the full details of Earl K. Sneed’s incidents, he knew enough that he shouldn’t have made “a horrible mistake” by keeping him on staff.

“I want to be clear, I’m not putting the blame on anybody else,” Cuban told ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “It came down to my final decision that I made.”

In their Sports Illustrated investigation into a Dallas “corporate culture rife with misogyny and predatory sexual behavior,” journalists Jessica Luther and L. Jon Wertheim reported that Sneed, a full-time beat writer for the Mavericks’ website since the 2010-11 season, was “involved in a domestic dispute with a girlfriend” midway through his first season on the job. They cited a police report that claimed Sneed “sat on top of her and slapped her on the face and chest,” and told her, “I’m going to [bleeping] kick your ass. Today is gonna be the worst day of your life,” before leaving the scene prior to police arriving.

The woman reportedly suffered a fractured right wrist and bruises on her arms and chest. Sneed was arrested at the Mavericks’ facility two months later and charged with assault. He’d later plead guilty to a pair of less serious misdemeanor charges that were dismissed after he paid a $750 fine, completed supervised community service, and enrolled in an anger management program.

Two years later, Sneed once again allegedly became involved in a domestic violence incident. SI reported that during a 2014 dispute between Sneed and a female Mavericks colleague he’d been dating, “Sneed turned violent, hitting the woman.” She later reported the incident to Buddy Pittman, the Mavericks’ head of human resources, whom she said told her about Sneed’s prior arrest … which made her wonder why he still had a job with the team.

Sneed retained his job until Tuesday, when, in an attempt to get ahead of the coming SI story, the Mavericks released a statement saying that an employee who had “misled the organization about a prior domestic violence incident and “was not candid about the situation” had been fired. That employee was Sneed.

In a statement to the Dallas Morning News, Sneed claimed that he “signed a contract stating that I would not have one-on-one contact or fraternize with female employees after” the second incident and that he underwent counseling in the years that followed “to avoid future instances,” and thanked Cuban “for his willingness to help facilitate that growth.”

The statement raised serious questions about just how much Cuban knew about Sneed’s incidents, when he knew it and why he responded as he did. Cuban told MacMahon that he knew some of what had transpired, but not the “gruesome details” of it … which, in and of itself, puts the outspoken owner on shaky ground as the Mavericks begin an internal investigation into the matter.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban acknowledged Wednesday that he never sought the ‘gruesome details’ of Earl K. Sneed’s domestic violence arrest. (Getty) More

From MacMahon:

In hindsight, Cuban said, “I would have fired [Sneed] and still made him go to counseling” after learning details of the first domestic violence incident, expressing regret for not following up with police to discover those details. […]

“It was bad, but we made a mistake about the whole thing and didn’t pursue what happened with the police after the fact,” Cuban told ESPN. “So we got it mostly from Earl’s perspective, and because we didn’t dig in with the details — and obviously it was a horrible mistake in hindsight — we kind of, I don’t want to say took his word for it, but we didn’t see all the gruesome details until just recently. I didn’t read the police report on that until just [Tuesday], and that was a huge mistake obviously.”

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