Indiana Fever’s Sophie Cunningham Accused Of Having Affair With Former Employer Josh Bartelstein

Former Phoenix Suns director of safety, security and risk management Gene Traylor filed a lawsuit against the organization last week alleging racial discrimination, unlawful retaliation and security problems. But one part of the lawsuit stood out: a story about an interaction Traylor had with Suns CEO Josh Bartelstein.

Traylor allegedly told Bartelstein that vice president of security and risk management Cornelius Craig had been spreading damaging information about the organization. “When Bartelstein asked Plaintiff to reveal what Craig was saying,” reads the lawsuit, “Plaintiff explained that Craig had been telling others, ‘Josh Bartelstein is f–-ing Sophie Cunningham.’”

Cunningham, 28, spent the first six years of her WNBA career with the Phoenix Mercury, which Bartelstein also owns. She was traded this year to the Indiana Fever.

She and Bartelstein, who is married, both denied the allegations vehemently.

“The recent reports concerning Josh Bartelstein and Sophie Cunningham are entirely false and morally reprehensible,” reads the Suns’ statement. “Let’s absolutely be clear about the origins of these claims.”

The team, which has been sued four times in the past seven months by former employees, accused attorney Sheree Wright of attempting to extort them. “She continues to insert salacious lies and fabrications into her complaints—knowing that the media may report them as fact, as happened yesterday [with the Cunningham story]—she hopes to coerce the Phoenix Suns into settling. Sheree Wright will not extort our organization and never see a single dollar.”

Cunningham, in turn, issued a much more personal statement calling the allegations “untrue and extremely hurtful.”

“I am here to compete, play basketball at the highest level and win for my team and my fans, while inspiring other women that they can do or be anything they ever dream of becoming… I will not let untrue gossip take my focus away from what is most important to me, which is basketball, my supportive teams and my fans.”