Sex charge resurfaces
Report: Lions’ Patricia indicted, not tried in ’96
THE NFL is about to be faced with the question if it wants one of its head coaches out there with a sexual assault accusation attached to his name.
Matt Patricia had a radioactive skeleton in his closet when he passed on the possibility of taking over the Giants to lead the Lions, and it appears the Giants avoided a massive headache by not hiring him after an explosive Detroit News report revealed he was indicted for a sex crime more than 20 years ago but the charges were dismissed.
Patricia vehemently denied the allegations in a statement late Wednesday evening.
“I would never condone any of the behavior that was alleged and will always respect and protect the rights of anyone who has been harassed or is the victim of violence,” he said. “My priorities remain the same – to move forward and strive to be the best coach, teacher, and man that I can possibly be.”
#MeToo just met the NFL in a head-on collision.
Patricia, who was hired by the Lions in February, was indicted as a 21-year-old for sexual assault while he was a college student. He was never tried for the alleged incident. Team owner Martha Ford reportedly did not know about the allegation when he was hired. Lions team president Ron Wood initially told the Detroit News he didn’t know anything about it, but later added he was “comfortable” with the hiring process.
Prior to joining the Lions, Patricia spent 14 years with the Patriots, where he won three Super Bowls and worked his way up from coaching assistant to defensive coordinator.
“I am very comfortable with the process of interviewing and employing Matt,” Wood said. “I will tell you with 1,000-percent certainty that everything I’ve learned confirmed what I already knew about the man and would have no way changed our decision to make him our head coach.”
On the night of March 15, 1996, Patricia and another Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute football player allegedly broke into a woman’s hotel room while she was asleep and “took turns violently sexually assaulting her,” according to the report.
They were arrested, charged and indicted by a grand jury on one count of aggravated sexual assault. Patricia and the other man, Greg Dietrich, 22 at the time, never stood trial and they were never convicted of the alleged crime because the alleged victim was too afraid to testify.
“Victim does not feel she can face the pressures or stress of a trial,” according to hand-written court documents obtained by the Detroit News.
The alleged attack took place in South Padre Island, just north of the Mexican border, during the notoriously hard-partying annual Texas Week. E.E. Eunice, the San Padre police chief at the time, had told a local newspaper the alleged victim knew the two after “she had palled around with them for a few days.”
Patricia’s lawyer Jeff Wilson said she made the whole thing up.
“In my opinion, it was a fabrication,” Wilson told the Detroit News. “I’m telling you it was a ‘he said, she said.’ I don’t know what type of problems the girl was having; I don’t know why she made that allegation. We vehemently denied that he was doing anything wrong or did anything wrong.”
Ford, Wood and Lions GM Bob Quinn released a joint statement explaining that while they did not know of the indictment they “have accepted Coach Patricia’s explanation and we will continue to support him.”
Patricia is scheduled to speak to the media Thursday.