Charles Oakley has insisted from the moment he was ejected from Madison Square Garden in February that he did nothing wrong, and he's prepared to go to court to prove it.

The former Knicks star appeared in a Manhattan courtroom Friday and rejected a conditional dismissal of charges that would have left him with a clean record after six months of good behavior, the New York Daily News reported .

A judge then set an Aug. 4 trial date for Oakley, who is facing assault, aggravated harassment, criminal trespass and harassment charges in the wake of his high-profile removal from a Knicks-Clippers game Feb. 8.

Oakley said he was ordered to leave the arena for no reason, and authorities said the 53-year-old punched three Madison Square Garden employees in the ensuing struggle to get him out of the building. The situation escalated when the Knicks issued a statement saying Oakley had "behaved in a highly inappropriate and completely abusive manner" and concluded with the team hoping Oakley "gets some help soon."

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Oakley's attorney in the case is Alex Spiro, who successfully defended Hawks forward Thabo Sefolosha following his 2015 arrest outside a New York nightclub. Spiro used a similar method in that case, turning down a deal from prosecutors to go to trial, and Sefolosha was found not guilty on all charges. He later sued the city over the broken leg suffered during the arrest and reached a $4 million settlement earlier this year.