Ex-Pima County Supervisor Sylvia Lee cited for throwing drink at UA basketball game

A former Pima County Supervisor has been cited and banned from all University of Arizona properties for throwing her drink at a BYU basketball player at the end of a contentious basketball game in February.

Sylvia Lee, who was appointed to the Pima County Board for about a year, was cited by UA police on suspicion of two counts of “assault/no injury” for throwing a drink onto three employees working the Feb. 22 UA-BYU men’s basketball game that ended in a controversial foul call that prompted anti-LDS chants from some people in the crowd.

A UA police sergeant working as the incident commander for the game said from his peripheral vision he saw “what appeared to be someone throwing a drink in the direction of the basketball court.”

“The drink hit a lot of the audio/visual equipment and possibly three employees,” the officer said in his report. He didn’t see who threw the drink, but another person saw a woman wearing a red shirt or sweatshirt who “quickly left up the stairs.”

Two of the three employees wished to pursue charges, the reports says.

The officer tried to follow the woman, later identified as Lee, up the stairs but she “blended into the crowd” of people in red — the game was a “red out” — leaving the McKale Center at the same time, according to the report.

Lee was later identified “based on the seating assignment of the individual” by a person in the UA Athletics Department, the officer said.

“(Lee) essentially explained to me when she was leaving the game there was popcorn and soda on the floor and she slipped causing the drink to spill and didn’t do it on purpose. She said everyone was pointing at her, so she ran out of there,” the officer wrote. “I explained to Lee we have video of the entire incident and that her recollection of what happened didn’t match what I saw on the video.”

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Lee told a different story to the Green Valley News, which first reported on the incident. She told a reporter she intentionally threw her drink.

Lee has second-row season tickets, the outlet reported.

Lee said that a BYU basketball player made an “obscene gesture” towards her daughter “and I threw the remnants of my ice at him and missed,” she told the outlet, later adding that somebody on the court was hit “by ice and melted ice.”

Lee was subsequently issued an Exclusionary Order, which bans her from all UA property through Feb. 24.

The outcome of her case is “deferred prosecution,” according to a Pima County Justice Court filing. A Dec. 1 deadline is listed online for an adult diversion program.

Lee is a former board member of the Pima Community College governing board and worked as a PCC campus president and dean. In December 2023, Lee was appointed to a vacant seat on the Pima County Board of Supervisors, a post she held beginning January 2024 through the end of the year. She did not seek re-election.