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Class act Mr. Turkoglu!
http://news.therecord.com/Sports/article/656716
http://news.therecord.com/Sports/article/656716
Clubber’s photos of Raptors player deleted
January 14, 2010
BY NOOR JAVED
The truth was out there, but it’s all been deleted.
It took less than a minute to delete all photos that would have told the story of what actually took place when clubgoer Jazmine Singh’s photo-taking collided with the ego of Toronto Raptors forward Hedo Turkoglu at a popular night club in Yorkville early Thursday morning.
Singh, who said she was taking pictures of her friend Meghan Kesivic at the bar in Lobby Night Club around 1 a.m., was stunned when a “giant 7-foot man” turned out and grabbed the phone from her hand and deleted all her photos.
It wasn’t until they asked the club’s security to help, that they were told the big guy was a basketball player with the Raptors — and — in not so many words — that he could get away with it.
“He just ripped the phone out of my hand — I thought he was trying to steal it,” said Singh, still incredulous a day later. “I had no idea who he was. I didn’t care who he was. No one has the right to do that,” she said.
Turkoglu was on the defensive that night.
The Turkish import told the Star Thursday he was at the bar “trying to chill” with friends, when he saw a flash go off. He said that’s when he asked a security guard to grab the phone and delete the pictures.
“I don’t like people taking my picture, especially in the club, before asking. She did. I said ‘Did you ask me?’ She said no. I said, ‘I want you to delete it’,” Turkoglu told the Star’s Dave Feschuk following Thursday’s practice at the Air Canada Centre.
“There was a guy with me, a security guy, he deleted it,” said Turkoglu.
Singh says he never even tried to speak with her. She says she would have willingly deleted any photos he was mistakenly in, if Turkoglu had simply asked instead of “reaching out his long arm and simply grabbing the phone right out of my hands.
“I think he just saw a flash and freaked out,’ she said.
Kesivic said Turkoglu’s story doesn’t add up, since she’s not a basketball fan and didn’t even know who he was. “He could have knocked on my door and tried to sell me something, I would have had no idea who he was.”
It was only when they went home, and searched online, that they confirmed it was Turkoglu.
Last summer the Raptors signed Turkoglu to a five-year, $52 million contract to lure him away from the Orlando Magic. Despite the initial excitement when he joined, he has struggled to perform on court.
Canadian privacy laws allow anyone to take photos of anyone in a public place, regardless of what they’re doing, and publish them.
But taking photos in a private venue, such as a club, requires advance permission from those in charge, but neither is it illegal to just go ahead and shoot.
But the case of private photos being deleted from a camera phone, it is a little more vague; Toronto police say it is unlikely any charges would be laid for such an incident, since no one was hurt and nothing tangible was stolen.
But Singh and Kesivic say don’t plan to take any further action against Turkoglu, other than taking their experience with him public.
“It was very demeaning to us,” said Kesivic, as she recalled how Turkoglu’s friends laughed at them after he eventually returned the phone.
“I know how these things work: he is a regular, he comes in there and can drop so much more money than we can,” she said. “They think they can do whatever, and get away with it.”
Management at Lobby nightclub said they had no comment on the incident.
The incident comes at a time, when more and more professional athletes are dealing with the ups and downs with real-time stardom: Blogs like drunkathlete.com and deadspin.com that are willing to post the most scandalous of photos; passionate fans crashing locker rooms to snatch cellphone pictures; and bitter ex-girlfriends willing to sell personal and often compromising photographs to the highest bidder.
The perils of the cellphone paparazzi has made many athletes overly cautious of even the most innocuous of photo requests.
But if the women were hoping for at least an apology from the athlete, they might have to give up waiting. He likely won’t be saying sorry anytime soon.
“I don’t hide this kind of stuff. If somebody else (takes a picture without asking) I’m going to do the same thing again,” Turkoglu said.


