Irvin compares incident to lynching
He asks hotel for video to clear name
DALLAS — Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer Michael Irvin’s attorney has again asked Marriott to release a video that shows him meeting with a Renaissance hotel employee on Feb. 5, days before the Super Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.
The woman has accused Irvin of misconduct.
No criminal charges were ever filed and police were never involved. But the accusation caused Irvin to be removed from the NFL Network’s Super Bowl coverage. The NFL Network has yet to put him back on air.
Irvin says he’s being railroaded by false accusations that could threaten his broadcasting career.
Attorney Levi McCathern has seen the video and says it proves that Irvin did nothing inappropriate. He described what he saw in the video to media during a press conference Wednesday.
Last month, Irvin filed a $100 million dollar lawsuit against the unnamed accuser and the hotel accusing them of defamation.
McCathern said the meeting occurred in the hotel lobby and lasted “about a minute and a half.”
“When you first see the video, Michael is outside is taking pictures, and the accuser is behind the front desk,” the lawyer said. “The accuser walks from behind front desk and is approaching Michael and the group.”
McCathern said the exact moment that Irvin meets the accuser is not seen on the video as it occurs behind a pole.
“They first greet each other,” the lawyer said. “They shake hands. They touched four times. He shakes her hand at the beginning and at the end he touches her elbow. And one time when he was laughing., he buckles over and touches (her) other elbow.”
Marriott has not released the tape to the Irvin and his attorney.
Irvin has said that no inappropriate physical conduct occurred between him and the woman during their brief conversation inside the lobby at Renaissance Phoenix Downtown.
“This sickens me because in this great country, this takes me back to a time where a white woman would accuse a Black man of something, and they would take a bunch of guys that were above the law, run into the barn and put a rope around them, drag him through the mud and hang them,” Irvin said. “This just blows my mind that in 2023 we are still dragging and hanging brothers by a tree.
“That blows my mind that I have no opportunity to defend myself. I don’t even know what I’m defending. To listen to the court, Marriott is above the law. I still haven’t seen this tape. I haven’t seen this case. I want to see what I’m being accused of that put my whole life on hold, why my family had to endure it.”
Irvin’s attorney made it clear he believes releasing the video will help show the ex-Dallas Cowboys wide receiver did nothing wrong when he interacted with the hotel worker on Feb. 5.
Last week, the hotel filed to dismiss Irving’s lawsuit, saying “it leases its brand to but does not own the Phoenix hotel where Irvin allegedly made ‘harassing and inappropriate’ comments to a hotel worker Super Bowl week.”
The press conference came one day after a court-ordered deadline by which Marriott was required to give Irvin any video recordings and other materials associated with the incident.
McCathern has taken another step to compel Marriott to release the video.
“We have filed a emergency plaintiff’s motion to enforce a court order to try to get the video,” McCathern said. “It was filed this morning. We’re hopeful we’ll get the video to share it. But we think we’re far enough along in the case now to say this case is nonsense. Not our case but the allegations are nonsense. And we need to immediately get Michael back to work, and I believe that Renaissance needs to apologize to him.”
McCathern and Irvin’s agent Steve Mandell joined Irvin at the press conference.
They were also joined by two witnesses via livestream, one from Australia and one from Europe.
Both said they met Irvin and the lobby and went outside to take a picture when the incident allegedly occurred.
Neither saw Irvin do anything appropriate during the brief encounter.
Irvin admittedly got emotional listening to the two men give their accounts and is forever thankful they were there because he shudders to think about where he would be if he were alone and it was just his word vs. the accuser.
“I’m struggling with this,” Irvin said. “I’m trying be an ambassador of the league and also understand that God’s blessed me in giving me a platform to try to touch people, to try to raise people, to try to lift people up. I’ve met a lot of fans and I’ve always tried to be good with people. I’m struggling now, saying ‘what do I do?’, because of this kind of a situation. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was trying to do everything right.”
“I have come back to this moment. And if I’m not saying to these guys, ‘let’s go outside and take that picture.’ Then they wouldn’t have been right there with me. And that would have been a moment that I would have had alone. And I know nobody’s going to listen to what I say. Nobody still ... don’t want to hear what we have to say. I’m struggling with that. What do I do moving forward after this is over?”