NEW YORK — Jurors in the Isiah Thomas sexual harassment case are close to reaching a verdict and, based on a note they sent the judge Monday, they appear to believe some of his accuser's allegations.

The note, sent at 4:40 p.m., said the jury had reached decisions on eight of the nine questions on the verdict form.

But the four women and three men were deadlocked 6-1 on whether Thomas should pay damages for Anucha Browne Sanders' claim that the Knicks' president and coach sexually harassed her.

"I cannot seem to move forward," the foreperson wrote in the note. "Please advise."

Because of the language of the verdict form, to even consider whether Thomas should have to pay punitive damages, the jury must have found that Madison Square Garden subjected Browne Sanders to a hostile work environment and that Thomas sexually harassed her, which contributed to that hostile work environment.

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The jurors were in their second full day of deliberations and had worked for a total of 15 hours and 40 minutes before they sent the note to U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch.

When Lynch's clerk walked into the courtroom holding the folded yellow piece of paper, the crowd of media and lawyers, who had spent the day playing computer card games and talking loudly, all fell silent.

Thomas conferred closely with his lawyers as Browne Sanders sat next to hers, waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom.

When he did, Lynch asked all sides whether they wanted him to take the verdicts on the charges the jury had agreed on and declare a mistrial on the one deadlocked count, give the jury the Allen charge to continue deliberating, or ask them to sleep on it and return in the morning.

All sides agreed that, if the jurors were told to continue deliberating into the evening, the holdout might decide to vote with the rest, just to be able to go home.

"We'd like you to sleep on it," Lynch told the jurors, who looked tired but not angry that they were being asked to return in the morning.

"Come back tomorrow and take one last try," he said.

The trial stems from a suit filed by the 44-year-old former Northwestern basketball star, who says she was dismissed in 2006 because she dared to accuse Thomas of routinely using vulgar language and of making unwanted sexual advances toward her. She seeks $10 million and reinstatement to her former job as vice president of marketing, which paid as much as $260,000 annually.

Thomas, a 12-time NBA All-Star and member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, said he'd never cursed at his colleague and had never made advances toward her. The Garden claimed Browne Sanders was fired for poor performance and tampering with the internal investigation into the sexual harassment complaint.

On Friday, jurors had asked for a mountain of evidence and later in the day sent a note also indicating they were leaning toward finding the Garden liable for a hostile work environment. The note focused on Lynch's legal instructions and how to proceed if "the elements of the claim had been met."

The jurors said they were troubled by the wording on the verdict form, specifically whether the Garden "intentionally" discriminated against her and subjected her to a hostile work environment. The judge told them to disregard the wording of the verdict form and base their verdict strictly on the legal instructions.

Lawyers on all sides of the case declined to comment on Monday's developments.