Eversole targeted Richards “because of her gender identity,” Ingrasselino added in his suit. Employees who were forced to conduct the surveillance were often uncomfortable, since they believed it to be a clear act of profiling, according to the first former staffer. "She posed no threat," added a second former employee.

"She wasn't taking pictures in restricted areas. She wasn't trying to go places she shouldn't be,” the source continued. “This is just a very large transgender woman, being a fan, walking around.”

But Eversole's orders were explicit: Keep watching. According to the lawsuit, he showed Richards' picture in several weekly meetings, misgendering her, and telling employees to watch out for “him or it or whatever it is.” Ingrasselino further contends in his court filing that “Eversole did not similarly limit access to others who socialized with athletes, including individuals who had extensive criminal histories and had the potential of posing a legitimate threat to MSG.”

On January 10, 2022, the Knicks played the San Antonio Spurs at the Garden. It was Pride night. Richards was there, attending with a friend. An 18-page report prepared by Eversole's Threat Management Group and reviewed by WIRED shows just how closely she was being monitored.

07:10:20 // CAM 0241 // scans her ticket to section 102, Row 8, Seat 5

07:11:14 // CAM 1434 // goes up terrace escalators on level 3 to level 6 concourse

07:12:52 // CAM AC10 // hugs usher

Appendix A of the report has a screenshot of the embrace, with Richards circled in red.

08:08:58 // CAM 1093 // talking with F&B worker at the Draft Kings Bar

08:10:49 // CAM 0512 // pays for the drinks

08:31:19 // CAM 0485 // eating at a table

It goes on and on. At 8:48 pm, camera 0489 spots another quick hug with an MSG “membership experience executive” (there's a grainy photo in the report's Appendix N). Two minutes and two seconds later, the same camera captures her heading into the women's bathroom. Her exit is noted after precisely two minutes and five seconds.

[Scans of two documents reporting on her movements. Photographs of her have been blurred]

Every MSG security source who was knowledgeable about this surveillance campaign used the word “excessive” or some synonym for this level of scrutiny. The report listed no reason for including these details on her movements. But when Richards and her guest on that January night began to move to some of the best seats in the house, the document's background turns red. It catalogs Richards talking to a security guard at 9:06 pm; that same guard walking over to section 1, row 1—right next to the Garden's famed “celebrity row” and Richards taking one of those seats 34 seconds after.

That night, Richards posted photos to her Instagram account. The images were included in the MSG security report. “What a great night,” she wrote in the captions. “I pray that this new year brings more peace, love and understanding to everyone.” In three of the photos, she's standing on the court, presenting a striking figure in a glittery jacket and boots. The post got 13,501 likes.

People who make it courtside often take such pictures or are caught on camera during TV broadcasts. According to Ingrasselino's lawsuit, Eversole claimed that if an “openly” trans woman were noticed, it could “damage MSG’s reputation.” The first former employee adds that they were told the very sight of Richards made the Garden brass uncomfortable.

“This was harassment. This was not OK,” the third former staffer said.

There's been centuries' worth of theorizing about the effects of surveillance on people's actions. More recently, neuroscientists have demonstrated what happens to the brains of people under the spycam’s gaze. Associate professor Kiley Seymour of the University of Technology Sydney has theorized that it induces a kind of hyper-reactivity, a constant state of fight-or-flight. “Being watched,” Seymour told Scientific American, “drives this hardwired survival mechanism into overdrive.”

Richards used to have an active, vibrant presence online. Today, Richards has functionally erased herself from the internet. Her 44,000-follower Instagram account has been nuked. Richards didn’t respond to requests for comment about her treatment by the Garden’s staff, other than to ask that WIRED not use her real name.

(An MSG spokesperson didn't respond to detailed questions about the treatment of Richards. But in a court filing, Garden lawyers said the allegation that “Eversole directed the use of facial recognition software to monitor the activities of a transgender woman” was “a clear attempt to cast Eversole in a negative light”—one carried out in “excessive, needless detail.”)

Richards was banned from the Garden, right when the Knicks have been fielding their best teams in decades. “Mr. Eversole [f]abricated a stalking allegation to justify banning” her from the Garden, according to Ingrasselino's suit. Every knowledgeable MSG security source we spoke to about this felt the charge was a smear. But it worked.

If a plutocrat’s corporate enforcer can put Richards in that position, it opens any of us to being the subject of the next paranoid campaign. “You have all this work going into tracking someone who's not doing anything tangibly wrong,” the second ex-staffer says.