Other EmailGate

Remove this Banner Ad

Report: Cowboys paid $2.4 million to settle allegations of locker-room voyeurism​

Posted by Mike Florio on February 16, 2022, 12:53 PM EST

Why is the NFL keeping the results of the Washington investigation so secret? Because other owners fear that they could find themselves in a similar mess.

Case in point — the Dallas Cowboys. While owner Jerry Jones faces no specific allegations against him (for now), a new report from Don Van Natta, Jr. of ESPN.com contends that the team owned and operated by Jones paid $2.4 million to settle claims made by four members of the team’s cheerleading squad. They claimed that former P.R. executive Rich Dalrymple secretly recorded them with an iPhone while they changed clothes in connection with a 2015 event at AT&T Stadium.

Dalrymple, per the report, also was accused by a fan who watched an online stream from the team’s draft room in 2015 of taking “upskirt” photos of Charlotte Jones Anderson, the daughter of Jerry Jones and an executive with the Cowboys.

“People who know me, co-workers, the media and colleagues, know who I am and what I’m about,” Dalrymple said in a statement issued to ESPN.com. “I understand the very serious nature of these claims and do not take them lightly. The accusations are, however, false. One was accidental and the other simply did not happen. Everything that was alleged was thoroughly investigated years ago, and I cooperated fully.”

The team issued a statement to ESPN.com as well, from communications consultant Jim Wilkinson.

“The organization took these allegations extremely seriously and moved immediately to thoroughly investigate this matter,” Wilkinson said. “The investigation was handled consistent with best legal and HR practices and the investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing. . . . If any wrongdoing had been found, Rich would have been terminated immediately. Everyone involved felt just terrible about this unfortunate incident.”

But, obviously, enough of something was found to result in $2.4 million changing hands. The money was paid pursuant to non-disclosure agreements. And someone disclosed at least one of the agreements; Van Natta obtained it.

Dalrymple recently retired. Van Natta writes that the move came “several weeks after ESPN began interviewing people about the alleged incidents and just days after ESPN contacted attorneys involved in the settlement.” Dalrymple, in his statement, said that the allegations “had nothing to do with my retirement from a long and fulfilling career, and I was only contacted about this story after I had retired.”

We’ll see whether and to what extent this mushrooms for the Cowboys. The timeline is curious, to say the least. And with Congress currently pressuring the league over the Washington Commanders situation, it could be a matter of time before the House Committee on Oversight & Reform targets the Cowboys, too.
 

NFL declines comment on Cowboys voyeurism scandal​

Posted by Mike Florio on February 17, 2022, 1:15 PM EST

On Wednesday, a new report from Don Van Natta, Jr. of ESPN.com placed a new pot on the NFL’s stove of controversies. The Cowboys paid $2.4 million to resolve claims made regarding alleged voyeurism involving the team’s cheerleading staff.

Given the ongoing back-and-forth between the NFL and Congress regarding the investigation of workplace misconduct within the Washington Commanders organization, this would seem to be something about which the league should be concerned. Officially, it’s not.

“We will decline comment as this was a club matter,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told PFT via email.

That’s a confusing response. Plenty of club matters draw attention, and comment, from the league. The entire Washington Commanders situation was a “club matter,” too. Some club matters necessarily land on the radar screen of the league office, especially in light of the Personal Conduct Policy.

For the Cowboys, the team on one hand paid $2.4 million and on the other hand concluded that there was no wrongdoing. Something doesn’t add up. Companies don’t pay out that much money for no reason. At a minimum, the league should be as curious as to what caused the team to pay so much money — if the league even knew about the payment at the time it was made. It’s possible that the league did not.

That’s a separate issue, one that drew significant attention after Panthers founder Jerry Richardson sold the team. Richardson settled multiple employee claims with non-disclosure agreements that weren’t disclosed to the league, creating a question as to whether the Panthers violated the reporting requirements of the Personal Conduct Policy. The Cowboys may face that same issue, if the Cowboys didn’t disclose the allegations and/or the resolution to the league.

In 2018, Mark Leibovich (author of Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times), explained that the league feared the Richardson case was the tip of the iceberg. The Cowboys’ scandal happened more than two years before the Richardson allegations came to light, and it remained under wraps for more than four years after the Richardson situation came to light.

Also in 2018, lawyer Mary Jo White recommended that the league limit the use of NDAs. It remains unclear whether the league ever acted on that recommendation.

Regardless, this “club matter” should have been (and still should be) league business. An investigation should have been conducted at the time, if the Cowboys properly reported the incident. If the Cowboys didn’t report it, that’s a separate problem.

For now, the league apparently will try to deflect attention from the situation in Dallas by saying nothing about it at all. Whether that successfully persuades fans, media, and/or members of Congress to pay no attention to the situation remains to be seen.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

NFL surrenders some Washington documents to Congress, but Congress wants more​

Posted by Mike Florio on February 17, 2022, 7:39 PM EST

The push and pull between the NFL, the Washington Commanders, and Congress continues, regarding the effort to get more information about the investigation regarding sexual harassment and other workplace misconduct within the organization.

Recently, the league surrendered some documents generate by the probe to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform. But not enough to satisfy the effort for transparency.

“We have been clear that the NFL must stop hiding the results of the [Beth] Wilkinson investigation and fully comply with the Committee’s requests, or the Committee will have no choice but to take further action,” the committee said in a statement issued to the Washington Post. “The Chairs are committed to uncovering the truth about what happened within the Washington Commanders organization and how allegations were handled by the NFL in order to inform legislative efforts to make workplaces safe for everyone.”

The question becomes whether the Committee will hold a full-blown hearing, complete with subpoenas for testimony and documents. The league and the team will continue to try to hide key materials by invoking the protections of the attorney-client privilege and/or the work product doctrine. Then, the question will be whether and to what extent those privileges will prevail.

Ultimately, the committee should seek to hear from Wilkinson herself. She conducted the 10-month investigation. She prepared a report that the league didn’t want. The report, if she’d been asked to deliver it to the league, would have recommended that the league force owner Daniel Snyder to sell. If/when those facts ever officially come to light, it will become much more difficult for Snyder to avoid that outcome — regardless of what happens with the looming investigation of Tiffani Johnston’s allegations made two weeks ago before a hybrid roundtable hearing conducted by the committee.
 

Commanders will not pursue own investigation, saying they will fully cooperate with NFL’s​

Posted by Charean Williams on February 18, 2022, 5:38 PM EST

After a former team employee made sexual harassment allegations against Commanders owner Dan Snyder earlier this month, the team announced it had hired Pallas Global Group to oversee an investigation.

The NFL then announced that it — not the Commanders — would hire an investigator to examine Tiffani A. Johnston’s claims. The league did just that, informing the House Oversight Committee on Friday that it has selected Mary Jo White to investigate the latest allegations.

White previously conducted the NFL’s investigation into allegations against former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.

In a statement, the Commanders said they will not pursue their own investigation: “The Washington Commanders are pleased that the NFL has appointed Mary Jo White to look into recent allegations made by Tiffani Johnston. The Commanders have always been intent on having a full and fair investigation of this matter conducted, and to releasing the results of that investigation. Given the team’s confidence in Ms. White’s ability to conduct such a full and fair investigation, the Commanders will not separately pursue an investigation and will cooperate fully with Ms. White.”

During a House Committee roundtable hearing, Johnston alleged that Snyder put his hand on her leg and tried to coerce her into his limousine. Johnston did not participate in attorney Beth Wilkinson’s 10-month probe, prompting the new investigation.
 

Mary Jo White will conduct NFL’s investigation into new allegations against Commanders​

Posted by Charean Williams on February 18, 2022, 4:58 PM EST

The NFL informed the House Oversight Committee on Friday that it has selected Mary Jo White to investigate the latest allegations against Daniel Snyder and the Commanders.

The new allegations arose from the House Committee roundtable hearing. Since they came by individuals in an open forum, with no expectation of anonymity, the NFL will make the findings public at the conclusion of the investigation, a league spokesman confirmed.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will determine any further sanctions, which will be made public, and the league also will release a written report of the investigator’s findings.

The most recent claims made against Snyder and the Commanders came from a former employee who didn’t participate in attorney Beth Wilkinson’s 10-month probe.

White is a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. She previously conducted the NFL’s investigation into allegations against former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.

White now is a partner in the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm in New York.
 
She got Jerry to jump on his own sword, hopefully the same outcome for Dan. I have my doubts tho, genuinely has no shame.
 
0% chance they release Wilkinson's findings.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Lawyers will discuss with Tiffani Johnston her potential cooperation with Washington investigation​

Posted by Mike Florio on February 18, 2022, 8:23 PM EST

The NFL has decided not to hire Beth Wilkinson but to appoint Mary Jo White to conduct the latest investigation of Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder. The former employee whose allegations sparked the probe has not yet decided to cooperate.

In a statement issued by her lawyers, Tiffani Johnston’s preference is clear. She wants Beth Wilkinson, who conducted the original investigation, to conduct the new one.

“Beth Wilkinson conducted a long and comprehensive investigation of the Washington Commanders, and earned the trust of dozens of victims and witnesses who provided her with evidence of pervasive sexual harassment and abuse,” attorney Lisa Banks said in a statement. “We understood that Ms. Wilkinson would also conduct the investigation into Tiffani Johnston’s allegations about Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder, given her unique knowledge of the Commanders organization, its culture of sexual harassment, and Dan Snyder’s credibility. Having a new investigator, with no such prior knowledge, assess Ms. Johnson’s allegations and Mr. Snyder’s denials in a vacuum makes no sense at all. That said, we will discuss with Ms. Johnston her willingness to participate, and are pleased that the NFL has agreed to make the results public. On behalf of our many other clients, we urge Commissioner Goodell to make the same decision with respect to Ms. Wilkinson’s investigation. Certainly the results of that comprehensive investigation would provide an important blueprint for the new investigator to conduct her work.”

Wilkinson, as PFT has reported, would have recommended that Snyder be forced to sell, if the NFL had requested a written report upon conclusion of her 10-month review of workplace misconduct allegations. To the extent Johnston wanted Wilkinson to handle the investigation of Johnston’s claims, Snyder undoubtedly didn’t want Wilkinson. Indeed, it’s fair to conclude that the team’s decision to abandon plans for its own investigation and to welcome White’s involvement represented a concession made when the NFL didn’t retain Wilkinson for the Johnston investigation.

Whether White was the right choice for the investigation is a separate issue, one that we’ll address in a subsequent post.
 

Cowboys should lift NDAs, allowing cheerleaders to tell their stories regarding voyeurism​

Posted by Mike Florio on February 19, 2022, 7:51 AM EST

Inexplicably, the same league that recently said the Washington Commanders should not be allowed to investigate themselves has no qualms about the fact that the Dallas Cowboys investigated themselves regarding the voyeurism allegations from 2015. Even more inexplicably (or less explicably, I suppose), the NFL apparently will get away with this deliberate failure to care about a significant incident of alleged misconduct.

I say “alleged” because the team’s investigation found no wrongdoing. Even though the team paid $2.4 million to resolve the allegations.

That disconnect is all the more reason for the league to investigate. Voyeurism, under Texas law, is a Class C misdemeanor. While the penalty is only a fine of up to $500, it’s still a crime. And it’s obviously a potential basis for civil litigation, as evidenced by the settlement.

The Cowboys found enough to justify paying $2.4 million. Although the broader facts and circumstances suggest that the payment was motivated by keeping the allegation that former Cowboys P.R. executive Rich Dalrymple (who allegedly recorded cheerleaders while changing) allegedly took “upskirt” photos of Cowboys executive (and daughter of Jerry Jones) Charlotte Jones Anderson during the 2015 draft, the team denied to ESPN.com that the affidavit from the fan who claims to have seen Dalrymple engage in that specific activity via a livestream from the team’s draft room sparked the settlement, in an effort to keep it all quiet.

It’s unclear how ESPN.com got its hands on the paperwork regarding the payment. The article contends that a former team executive provided the original tip. Ultimately, someone who was supposed to keep the information secret violated the terms of the document — and the secret is now out.

For that reason, the Cowboys should release the confidentiality provision of the settlement documents, allowing the cheerleaders to tell their stories publicly, if they so choose.

They quite possibly will. As an unnamed source said of the four victims of the alleged voyeurism: “They are still extremely upset. They saw it as a violation of their privacy that went unpunished.”

It’s more than that. It’s a violation of their privacy that went unexplored. Did Dalrymple do it? If so, was he acting alone or at someone’s direction or behest?

The circumstances cry out for more. Either the league can do the right thing and investigate, or the Cowboys can do the right thing and make it easier for the media to investigate by wiping out the NDAs.

And if anyone wants to claim that this is a private business matter that should not be subject to public scrutiny, here’s what Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told Bob Costas about Congressional scrutiny of the Washington Commanders, an organization whose long list of actual and/or alleged misconduct included the contention that outtakes from the preparation of a cheerleader video were collected for viewing by owner Daniel Snyder and other executives: “We go out of our way to ask people to look at the NFL. Quit looking away, look at the NFL. We want you to enjoy the nuances of the game. As a matter of fact, on a personal basis, the more transparent, the more you’re behind the scenes, the more you’re involved, to me the more you enjoy the game. I think when we ask the country to be as interested in pro football as you are, then you should expect those kinds of questions. And certainly social issues are a huge part of our lives today.”

There’s the engraved invitation for the NFL to investigate what happened. For Congress to investigate what happened. And for the Cowboys to invalidate the legal document that prevents the kind of questions Jones expects from being answered, especially since (as Jones said) “social issues are a huge part of our lives today.”

So, again, we call on the Cowboys to release the cheerleaders, Dalrymple, and anyone else from the terms of the non-disclosure agreements. And since the Cowboys won’t listen to us, we call on others with far more sway in these matters to make the same call.
 

Recent podcast on Cowboys cheerleaders includes unflattering allegations about Jerry Jones​

Posted by Mike Florio on February 27, 2022, 7:53 AM EST

The irreconcilable disconnect between the Cowboys paying $2.4 million to settle voyeurism allegations and concluding that no wrongdoing occurred compels a much closer look at the situation. Content to close the books on the matter (and to accept the team’s investigation of itself), the NFL doesn’t plan to do so. That means others need to start looking and probing and noticing and discussing.

Here’s a nugget contained in a recent article from Texan Monthly regarding the situation: “Sarah Hepola’s Texas Monthly podcast on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, America’s Girls, painted a less flattering portrait of [Cowboy owner Jerry] Jones. This Jerry Jones brought buddies to sip cocktails and leer at cheerleaders during their workouts. This Jerry Jones handpicked at least one cheerleader to accompany him on a trip in his private jet, where she was expected to wear the group’s famous, skimpy uniform and parade around for the boss’s guests.”

Cindy Villareal is the cheerleader who was invited to accompany Jones and guests on his jet.

“My first thought was, ‘Why am I being asked to be on an airplane with Jerry’s businessmen?’ I thought it was raunchy,” she told Hepola.

While that apparently happened years ago, it occurred on the watch of the man who decided in 2015 that: (1) Rich Dalrymple, Jones’s former P.R. executive and confidant (and, as some has described it, “fixer”) had done nothing wrong; and (2) $2.4 million should be paid to rectify whatever Dalrymple didn’t do. That makes no sense. Jones’s comments from Friday fail to make it make sense.

The Cowboys, who otherwise regard any publicity as good publicity, realize that this is not good publicity. They managed to use money to keep it all quiet for nearly seven years. Now that it’s out in the open, it’s largely being ignored — by the team, by the league, by pretty much everyone.

Hopefully, that won’t continue. For those of us who rely on instincts that scream out “they’re hiding something,” my instincts continue to scream out, “They’re hiding something.”

Literally, they are. The use of non-disclosure agreements proves it. But it feels like there could be something more. And there’s no way to know whether that’s true without the Cowboys rescinding the NDAs and the league conducting a full and complete investigation.

I know that there are bigger things currently happening in the world. But human beings (especially those in positions of power and leadership) have the capacity to pay attention to multiple problems at once. Besides, those whose conduct cries out for full exploration and accountability shouldn’t get to take cover in the fact that, from a broader perspective, times are currently tough.
 

Jon Gruden: Brian Flores’s lawsuit makes NFL look “quite foolish” in its defense against Gruden’s case​

Posted by Mike Florio on March 7, 2022, 7:30 PM EST

The lawsuit filed by former Raiders coach Jon Gruden continues be bogged down in the opening squabble over whether the case will be dismissed or, failing that, sent to arbitration.

Via Katelyn Newberg of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Gruden has filed paperwork opposing the NFL’s companion motions on Friday. Per the article, Gruden argues that the NFL appears “quite foolish” for arguing that it had an interest in “rooting racism, sexism and homophobia” from the league, given the allegations made by former Dolphins coach Brian Flores in a lawsuit filed on February 1.

“These statements were nothing more than hollow corporate speak when made on January 19, 2022, but they appear quite foolish now after the torrent of revelations against the NFL and [Roger Goodell] that have recently come to light,” Gruden’s lawyers write.

Gruden’s lawyers also claim that the question of “whether Gruden’s statements constituted conduct detrimental to the NFL” is irrelevant to his lawsuit. “Instead, this case is solely about Defendant’s conduct and their selective leaking of Gruden’s emails, their intent to harm Gruden, and their threats to release further documents unless the Raiders fired Gruden,” Gruden’s lawyers contend.

This case is a prime example of the dueling realities that emerge in most civil lawsuits. The league will focus on Gruden’s emails, arguing that the things he said disqualify him from employment. Gruden will focus on the fact that the information was supposedly included within a secret trove of documents, and that one of the few people with access to the information leaked it, in order to make the emails public and to force Gruden out.

It’s still not clear who leaked the emails. It is clear that not many people had access to them. Through his litigation (if it survives), Gruden should be able to get to the bottom of it.

Hopefully, he’ll get that chance. Someone weaponized those emails, to the detriment of Gruden. Yes, he got what he deserved. But that doesn’t make the way it happened right, that someone else didn’t do something wrong.

The league nevertheless wants that fight to happen in an arbitration over which the Commissioner presides, a procedure that necessarily stacks the deck in the league’s favor. In opposing the motion to compel arbitration, Gruden contends that, because he’s no longer an employee of an NFL team, his claims against the NFL “should be outside the ambit of the NFL Constitution.” This argument implies that the NFL hopes to force arbitration not through the language of Gruden’s employment contract, but under the terms of broader league policies.

Obviously, the league wants the dispute to be resolved by a rigged process — and to keep the controversy as far out of the public eye as possible.
 

Jon Gruden attacks NFL’s attempt to force arbitration of his lawsuit as “unconscionable”​

Posted by Mike Florio on March 11, 2022, 9:58 AM EST

Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden isn’t directly suing the Raiders. As a result, the arbitration clause in his Raiders contract doesn’t apply.

So how is the NFL trying to force Gruden to submit his lawsuit against the league and Commissioner Roger Goodell into arbitration? The league, based on publicly-available court filings, is trying to claim that Gruden’s situation falls under the NFL’s Constitution and Bylaws.

The Constitution and Bylaws, as written, allow the Commissioner to compel arbitration of any dispute arising from situation deemed to be conduct detrimental to the NFL or the sport of professional football. That’s a confusing standard, one that gives the Commissioner broad, vague powers to pull disputes out of the court system and into a private, secret process over which he or his representative preside if/when the Commissioner identifies some form of detrimental conduct in the underlying dispute.

As it relates to Gruden’s claim that the league and/or Goodell interfered with Gruden’s employment relationship with the Raiders by selectively leaking emails he sent to former Washington executive Bruce Allen, what is the detrimental conduct? Gruden’s emails sent at a time when he wasn’t employed by the NFL; is that detrimental conduct when it comes to light well after the fact? Does the NFL’s alleged mishandling of email that supposedly were secret amount to detrimental conduct?

In theory, any allegation of misconduct that any league or club employee ever makes against another league or club employee could end up being regarded as “conduct detrimental” and whisked away to a secret arbitration process.

Gruden also contends that he never received a copy of the Constitution and Bylaws, and that the arbitration provision by its terms doesn’t apply to former team employees, such as Gruden. Taken together (and with other technical legal arguments included), Gruden argues that the terms of the arbitration clause contained in the Constitution and Bylaws don’t apply to him, that he’s not bound by the requirement to remove his case from the court system and to submit it to the authority of Goodell, one of the very persons Gruden has sued.
 


www.si.com

Gruden vs. NFL: Attorney Predicts "Goodell will lose his job."

Las Vegas lawyer Sam Mirejovsky had an explosive prediction about Roger Goodell's future and the Jon Gruden vs. NFL lawsuit.
www.si.com www.si.com

Not that I believe it it will get that far yet, still think enough money will be exhcanged to make it go as quitely as possible.
 

WUSA9's Adam Longo reports six members of Congress have urged Roger Goodell to release the findings of the "Wilkinson Report."​

The Washington Commanders hired attorney Beth Wilkinson in 2020 to conduct an independent investigation into the workplace environment within the franchise. After Wilkinson concluded her investigation in July 2021, the NFL opted to fine the Commanders and team owner Dan Snyder $10 million for findings that suggested a toxic environment existed within the organization. What never came to light from what's come to be known as the "Wilkinson Report" is the actual findings laid out in the report. Now, six members of Congress from Maryland, DC and Virginia have written a letter to Goodell urging him to release the report and all its details and findings. Earlier this week Goodell accepted an invitation from the House Oversight Committee to speak on Washington's workplace culture -- an invitation that team owner Dan Snyder predictably declined. Goodell will speak with the House Oversight Committee virtually next week. Whether his testimony will have any impact on Snyder's status as a team owner is to be determined.
 

NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reports NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will testify on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee.​

Congressional lawmakers will interview Goodell about the Washington Commanders' hostile work environment and culture of rampant sexual harassment and assault. Members of Congress last week urged Goodell to release the findings of an independent investigation -- widely known as the Wilkinson Report -- into Washington's culture and owner Daniel Snyder's role in cultivating the hostile environment. The Commanders and Snyder were fined $10 million upon conclusion of the report, though the report's findings were never made public. A spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee said Snyder's continued refusal to testify before the committee “sends an unmistakable signal that Mr. Snyder has something to hide and is afraid of coming clean." A steady trickle of more damning revelations could ratchet up the pressure for NFL owners to remove Snyder as Washington's owner.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top