NFL To Investigate New Harassment Allegations Against Commander’s Owner

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at his annual press conference on Wednesday that the league will handle it, after a series of confusing and acrimonious statements between lawyers representing Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder and the women who accused him of sexual misconduct. investigation with an “external expert”.

“I don’t see any way for a team to do their own investigation,” Goodell said. “We’re going to take this seriously and move forward.”

The announcement comes hours after the team issued a statement announcing it would hire its own outside investigator to investigate allegations made by former employees at a Congressional roundtable last week. Several ex-team workers Read about the team’s “toxic workplace”, which recounts events dating back 15 years.

One of the speakers, Tiffani Johnston, the team’s former marketing and events coordinator, said that at a business dinner in 2005 or 2006, she sat next to Snyder, who put his hand on his thigh under the table. Later that night, he said he resisted Snyder’s attempt to push him into the limo.

In a letter presented at the roundtable, another former employee said he witnessed Snyder trying to steer Johnston into the limo.

Johnston also said in his statement that he requested an unedited photo of Snyder’s underwear wearing for a promotional calendar be replaced, enlarged and sent to his office.

At the same Congressional forum, Melanie Coburn, the team’s former cheerleader and the team’s marketing director, said she was hosting a business event at Snyder’s home in Aspen, Colo., where team executives hired prostitutes.

In a statement, Snyder described the allegations against him as “totally false”.

On Wednesday morning, Snyder’s team announced that it had commissioned Pallas Global Group, led by two former US attorneys, to investigate the allegations of Johnston, who left the team in 2008 alone.

Debra Wong Yang, who served as a California Supreme Court judge, United States attorney for the Central District of California, and commissioner of the Los Angeles Police Department, would lead this investigation and report to the Pallas Group, which provides independent monitoring to companies. and government agencies. The commanders said their findings would be made public.

Goodell’s statement later in the day seemed to reject this strategy.

After last week’s roundtable meeting, the league said it was “reviewing and considering Johnston’s allegations, like all other allegations of workplace misconduct at the Washington Commanders.” We will determine other appropriate actions.”

Responding to the team’s initial announcement, attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent Johnston and the team’s more than 40 former employees, said in a statement that it was “completely ridiculous” for Snyder to hire a team to investigate his own actions. described it as a “desperate PR stunt clearly designed to clear him of wrongdoing.”

Banks and Katz said any investigation into Johnston’s allegations must be led by Beth Wilkinson, who has spent more than a year investigating widespread sexual harassment allegations on the team.

The NFL has only released a summary of these findings, a decision Goodell defended, arguing that the league wanted to preserve the identities of prominent women. Many of these women, some of whom are represented by Banks and Katz, as well as members of Congress, they called for all the findings of the investigation will be made public.

Later, the attorney representing Snyder, Jordan Siev, opened fire on Johnston’s lawyers, stating that his claim was not sworn.

Goodell did not specify when the league investigation would begin.