Andy Reginald Dinh, a member and former player of TSM in the LCS, has just finally learned his sentence for all the controversy surrounding his person that has come out over the last few years. He will be sentenced to pay $75,000 and be monitored at all times for two years for disparaging and intimidating behavior towards TSM players and staff members.
In turn, he has appointed a kind of independent monitor or watchdog to operate as an information and follow-up line with regular check-ins with League of Legends TSM players to find out if there has been any more misbehavior. All this concludes after several months of investigation in which Reginald has been the center of attention, with complaints from different players and comments that show his mistreatment of workers.
The most controversial owner in the LCS
It was in November of last year that several workers and players in the North American LCS came forward and accused Dinh of violently intimidating his players and staff at TSM, claiming that Dinh’s verbal assaults had caused several public humiliations to many of them, in addition to nervous breakdowns and anxiety attacks. In response to these public accusations, additional individuals who are or were associated with TSM filed similar accusations through the LCS Players Association.
As a result of these allegations, LCS itself has retained outside counsel to conduct an independent investigation and report its findings. This competitive decision reflects those findings and exposes the owner of the historic North American club. To this we must add the report that was made at the end of May of this year with the recommendations that were given to Dinh about his behavior, since although they were not illegal, they were not ethical or moral for the worker.
A firm sentence towards Reginald
As for the sentence, the LCS has concluded that Dinh has violated points 14.3.1 and 14.3.4 of the LCS rule set. Additionally, under the terms of the Team Participation Agreement between the LCS and TSM, the team has agreed to professionally manage and operate the team, in accordance with the highest standards in the esports industry and to ensure that team members team (including Dinh) perform their services in a professional manner and in accordance with the standards and rules of conduct specified in the Rules.
Since this type of conduct or conviction had not yet been seen in the league and they had no firm basis for reference, they decided to add a fine of 75 thousand dollars, three times more than the maximum fine for misconduct of a member of the LCS team to reflect the multi-year extended pattern believed to have existed. In addition, TSM itself must provide evidence within sixty days that Dinh has completed his behavioral exercises to try to be a better person.
Finally, Dinh will be on a kind of probation for the next two years. TSM and Reginald have committed to a change of scenery and way of working within their organization and we want to provide space for this positive change to occur. However, they also want to make sure that if that change doesn’t happen, the consequences within the Riot ecosystem are clear and, above all, clear-cut. Any finding by the LCS, or any other Riot governing body, that Dinh has violated the rules during this testing period will bring heavy penalties to the team and its owner.