Channel 7 sportscaster Julie Donaldson, the victim in a high-profile domestic battery case this past summer, has resigned from the station for “personal reasons.”
“She just concluded that it was time to get a fresh start in a new market,” said Donaldson’s spokesman, Joe Baerlein.
However, multiple sources tell the Track that the sportscaster and WHDH-TV agreed to part ways after Donaldson failed to go on the air at the Patriots [team stats]-Steelers game two Sundays ago.
Sources say the former Miss Florida, who hasn’t been seen on 7News since the Nov. 30 game, was sent to Foxboro by the station but didn’t file her report.
Baerlein said he knew nothing about Donaldson’s actions that night. But we are told that since the game, the sportsgal and her agent, Ken Slotnick, have been in discussions with the station about the Donaldson’s future.
Yesterday, sources said, the sides reached an agreement that Donaldson would “pursue other opportunities,” closing the book on what has been a bizarre and controversial Boston tenure for the blonde broadcaster.
Donaldson made headlines last summer after her boyfriend, slamballer Ivan Lattimore, was arrested for punching her in the face, breaking bones, throwing her against a wall and striking three other women in a booze-fueled rampage after a night of partying at a Back Bay club. Lattimore pleaded guilty to the charges in September and was sentenced to a year in jail.
But Donaldson’s image suffered collateral damage in the case, after she admitted in court testimony that hours of drinking and partying proceeded the assault.
The sportscaster testified that, on the day she was attacked, she drank two Bloody Marys at lunch, three glasses of sangria and four shots in the afternoon, and several shots that night at the club Saint. She and her boyfriend invited six women back to her apartment after the club closed to “keep the party going,” she testified.
According to Baerlein, Donaldson has been having “trouble coping” in the aftermath of the assault and subsequent court proceedings.
“She said to me at one point ‘It permeates my daily existence,’ ” he said. “So she decided to take a new start, go home to Florida and be with her family over the holidays, and think about new opportunities in January.”
Baerlein said that Donaldson was “extremely grateful” to her station bosses for their support during her ordeal.
“But she’s just in a really fragile place,” he said.
File Under: Game Over.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1138288
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