A current employee of the Phoenix Suns sued the team in U.S. District Court in Arizona on Tuesday, citing allegations of discrimination, harassment and retaliation, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by ESPN.
The lawsuit is the fourth filed against the Suns by a current or former member of the organization in the past seven months.
The latest lawsuit was filed by lawyers representing Gene Traylor, the Suns’ director of safety, security and risk management who joined the team in January 2023.
In the complaint, Traylor says one of his primary roles was to identify safety, financial and reputational risks for the Suns. In 2023, Traylor submitted a presentation for management, which was reviewed by ESPN, that outlined specific incidents, including these three:
-
In March 2023, an unnamed former part-time employee was found to have stolen more than $40,000 in shoes, merchandise and apparel during their employment.
-
In April 2023, a “disgruntled subject” interrupted a Suns photo-op with team executives, including team president Josh Bartelstein.
-
And in June 2023, a political influencer “harassed” former Phoenix Mercury player Brittney Griner at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, delaying a team flight by 3½ hours.
Traylor alleges the presentation led Suns management to retaliate against him, including having him demoted nearly a year later. He also alleges the team discouraged him from taking protected leave after he was diagnosed with cancer.
In their response to ESPN, the Suns denounced Sheree Wright, one of two attorneys representing Traylor. The other is Courtney Walters.
“The Supreme Court of Arizona has twice disciplined attorney Sheree Wright for committing numerous violations of the rules of professional conduct, and she is currently serving a two-year probation with the State Bar of Arizona,” a Suns spokeswoman told ESPN on Thursday.
“This time, Ms. Wright and her client have made absurd accusations of misconduct surrounding the security department of the Phoenix Suns. These allegations are delusional and categorically false.”
In a joint statement to ESPN, Wright and Walters on Thursday said the Suns “have resorted to personal and defamatory attacks” against Wright in a “transparent and calculated attempt to shift the public narrative, discredit the attorneys involved, and avoid accountability for their own misconduct.”
The lawsuit states that on Dec. 17, 2023, the Phoenix Police Department’s Homeland Defense Bureau conducted a field test of the security measures at the Suns’ arena during a game. Plainclothes officers attempted to enter the arena using valid game tickets while concealing weapons. Two of the officers were able to bring a knife into the arena undetected.
On Dec. 3, 2024, officers from the same department conducted another field test of the security measures and successfully brought in two handguns and one knife through security.
ESPN obtained the reports of both field tests.
“Guest safety is our top priority,” a Suns spokeswoman told ESPN on Thursday. “We continue to meet and exceed safety expectations. We regularly conduct security tests, which is standard across the industry. We have used these proactive measures to ensure we are operating at the highest level of safety and preparedness.”
The lawsuit said that in February 2025, the NBA conducted its own security audit of the team’s arena, and the Suns failed that test as well. The audit, Traylor said, was a surprise — one the league regularly performs at arenas across the NBA — and not in response to any concerns he raised or to the February 2024 test that he said the Suns failed.
Since 2024, the team has failed multiple other league security audits, three team sources told ESPN.
The Suns dispute this allegation, saying they have never failed a security audit.
Traylor, who filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Arizona Attorney General’s office’s civil rights division in November 2024, is seeking undisclosed damages.
“We have seen the civil complaint filed Tuesday and will let the legal process take its course,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass told ESPN.
There have been three other recent lawsuits by former Suns employees that allege discrimination. All the lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona.
Andrea Trischan, who was the Suns’ program manager of diversity, equity and inclusion from September 2022 to July 2023, sued the team in November 2024, citing allegations of harassment, racial discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination. Trischan is seeking $60 million.
In March, Jason Cope, a former member of the team’s SunsVision department since 2009, sued the team, saying he was misclassified as an independent contractor, denying him benefits and overtime. Cope, 46, alleged age discrimination and that roughly a half-dozen other Suns employees of a similar age or older were transferred to contractor status while the team hired younger employees as full-time staff. Cope is seeking undisclosed damages.
In April, an anonymous former employee — identified in a lawsuit only as Jane Doe — alleged racial and gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation by a former Suns executive. The employee is seeking undisclosed damages.
“The common denominator is Sheree Wright. She is trying to extort the Suns organization,” a Suns spokeswoman told ESPN on Thursday. “Ms. Wright continues to recruit former and now current employees and is manipulating them to file meritless lawsuits.”
In their joint statement Thursday, Wright and Walters told ESPN “these are not vague accusations. They are specific, detailed, and backed by witnesses, documentation, and corroborating evidence.”
Also in April, Vicente Gonzales, whom the Suns hired as a “senior team member relations specialist” in November 2024, alleged misconduct within the organization in a public LinkedIn post.
In the since-deleted post about the team, Gonzales wrote that he raised concerns from staff about the behavior of management and leadership.
“I was silenced,” Gonzales wrote. “… I was told not to share specific negative information that I had received when it was time to report out. When I attempted to create a more efficient process to conduct investigations, I was not supported nor were my ideas considered. The organization has no intake system or triage system in place to appropriately address concerns throughout the entire organization.”
The spate of lawsuits against the Suns comes after the organization has sought to overhaul its workplace culture in the wake of an NBA investigation into the team following a November 2021 ESPN investigation into the Suns and allegations of misconduct by former Suns owner Robert Sarver.
The NBA’s investigation announced its findings in September 2022. The league corroborated ESPN’s reporting — while also describing allegations of misconduct among some of Sarver’s top executives — and fined Sarver $10 million while suspending him for one year.
Along with its September 2022 punishment of Sarver, who announced later that month that he would be selling the Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, the league also mandated that the Suns would be required to comply with a series of workplace standards and requirements over a three-year period, which would encompass the period under which the team has faced recent lawsuits from employees.
Among them, the team was required to report instances or allegations of “significant misconduct by any employee,” and the team’s efforts to address those incidents.
“There were significant challenges with the culture under the previous ownership,” a Suns spokeswoman told ESPN on Thursday. “We’re very proud of the work we’ve done to create a new culture under the leadership of Mat Ishbia. We are in full compliance.”
Mat Ishbia, a billionaire mortgage lender and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, bought a 57% controlling stake in the Suns for $2.28 billion, sources previously told ESPN.
On Feb. 8, 2023, before Ishbia was formally introduced during a news conference as the team’s new owner, he met with Suns employees.
“I want to make this the best place to work,” Ishbia told them, as ESPN reported at the time. “I want to get great people to join. I want to train them and coach them to be the best version of themselves and treat them so well that they don’t ever want to leave.
“… It’s all about people. People is everything. That’s the most important thing. Without great people, without people that care, you’ve got nothing. So we’re going to start with culture and team.”