How Meyer dodged questions
Deleted text messages could have told clearer story about Ohio State coach’s role
When Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer learned earlier this month that the ex-wife of his former longtime assistant and family friend was publicly accusing him of ignoring her claims of domestic violence, one of the first things Meyer did, according to a university investigation, was discuss with an assistant how to delete old text messages from his phone, so reporters couldn’t see them.
By the time Ohio State took Meyer’s phone, according to an investigative report produced by two former federal prosecutors, it was set to save text messages only for the previous year. A public records request from Ohio State’s student newspaper for messages Meyer sent in 2015, the report suggested, will likely never get filled as a result.
Meyer’s apparent attempt to subvert public records requests was among several conclusions of the 23-page investigative report produced by Mary Jo White and David Sarratt, partners at Debevoise & Plimpton law firm. The university gave Meyer a three-game suspension for how he responded to the allegations raised against former receivers coach Zach Smith, who has denied assaulting his wife.
The timing was convenient for Meyer, as he did not have to answer questions about his cellphone’s memory settings. Nor did he have to discuss several other
aspects of the investigation that Ohio State omitted from a three-page summary circulated to reporters before the news conference.
Meyer didn’t have to give his thoughts on why investigators didn’t believe his recollection that, in 2009, Courtney Smith told him she fabricated a claim of abuse against her then-husband, which got Zach Smith arrested in Florida.
During the news conference, White was critical of Meyer at times, but absolved him of accusations by Courtney Smith that he ignored her pleas for help, and then lied to reporters.
In response to questions, Meyer was
vaguely apologetic and curt, and pointedly avoided expressing sympathy or concern for Courtney Smith when a reporter asked Meyer whether he had any message for her.
“I have a message for everyone involved in this: I’m sorry that we’re in this situation. I’m just sorry,” Meyer said.
Here are some of the other highlights from the report, which was based on interviews with more than 40 witnesses, Meyer’s texts from the last year, as well as photos and text messages provided by Courtney Smith. Investigators were
unable to get text messages from Zach Smith, Ohio State football operations director Brian Voltolini — who apparently discussed with Meyer how to adjust text message memory settings on his phone — as well as from athletic director Smith. The report does not explain why.
The 2009 arrest
In June 2009, when Meyer was head coach at Florida, police arrested Zach Smith on a charge of aggravated battery of a pregnant woman. Courtney Smith told police her husband had thrown her into a wall.
Courtney Smith has said she decided to drop that case after she was pressured by two friends of Meyer’s — former Ohio State coach Earl Bruce, also Zach Smith’s grandfather, and Hiram deFries, a former oil executive and longtime Meyer confidante.
“[DeFries] said, ‘If you don’t drop the charges, Zach will never coach again,’ ” Courtney Smith told Brett McMurphy, a former ESPN reporter, in a conversation recounted on McMurphy’s Facebook page. “‘He’s never hit you before. He was drinking. He’ll probably never do it again. You should think about giving him a second chance.’ ”
Meyer, in his interviews with investigators, claimed that both Courtney and Zach Smith met with him in 2009, and told him Courtney had given false information to the police. Courtney Smith said she never met with Meyer in 2009, and never recanted her claims.
“We find it more likely that only Zach Smith met with Coach Meyer in 2009, and that Courtney Smith likely did not recant her allegations,” the investigation found. The report also concluded the meetings Courtney Smith described with Bruce and deFries probably did happen.
The 2015 allegations
In October 2015, Courtney Smith contacted police and said her then-estranged husband had been abusing her for years. Ohio State campus police learned about the investigation, and informed a Title IX coordinator in athletics, who contacted athletic director Smith.
After consulting with Zach Smith — who denied the allegations — Gene Smith and Meyer decided to keep track of the police investigation, but did not inform the athletic department’s compliance office. Police declined to press charges.
Courtney Smith was sharing her allegations, and photos she claimed showed injuries she suffered during assaults by her husband, via text message with Shelley Meyer, the investigation found.
Shelley Meyer told investigators that she did not tell her husband about her texts with Courtney Smith in 2015, because she had doubts about her truthfulness. Urban Meyer also said he didn’t recall discussing the allegations with his wife. Investigators didn’t believe them. Gene Smith said he had no knowledge of the 2009 arrest of Zach Smith until last month. Meyer did not mention it in 2011 when he hired Zach Smith, nor did he mention it when the 2015 allegations were raised, the coach acknowledged.
Zach Smith
Zach Smith has never been convicted of assaulting his wife, but there were other reasons to be concerned, investigators found. In May 2014, on a recruiting trip to Miami, Smith took high school coaches to a strip club, an incident that drew a stern rebuke from Meyer. As he was divorcing his wife in 2015 and 2016, Zach Smith skipped recruiting trips and then falsely reported he had attended, and athletic director Smith suggested firing him but Meyer kept him.
Meyer finally fired him last month, investigators found, when he learned through inquiries from reporters about legal issues Zach Smith had not disclosed.
Meyer’s truthfulness
Hours after Meyer fired Smith on July 23, McMurphy published a story alleging Zach Smith had been arrested on a domestic violence charge in 2015. There had been an investigation, but no arrest.
The next day, Meyer was scheduled to appear at Big Ten Media Days in Chicago.
“I know nothing about this,” Meyer texted several athletics administrators that night.
Gene Smith reminded Meyer of the 2015 investigation, the report stated, and then texted Meyer suggested remarks.
Several Ohio State staffers, in interviews with investigators, said they believe Meyer was fixated on the arrest aspect of the McMurphy report when he made his blanket denial of any knowledge of the 2015 investigation.
Meyer told investigators he had no recollection of the 2015 investigation when he spoke with reporters.
“We cannot logically square Coach Meyer’s responses on Big Ten Media Days broadly denying knowledge of the 2015 events regarding Zach Smith with his extensive knowledge of those events in 2015,” investigators wrote. They noted, an explanation, “that Coach Meyer has sometimes had significant memory issues in other situations where he had prior extensive knowledge of events. He has also periodically taken medicine that can negatively impair his memory, concentration, and focus.”
Missing text messages
On July 25, the day after Meyer’s appearance in Chicago, Ohio State athletics received a public records request from the school’s student newspaper, The Lantern. Journalists asked for any text messages in late 2015 sent between Meyer and Zach Smith, and between Meyer and athletic director Gene Smith.
The same day, Julie Vannatta, a lawyer on Ohio State’s general counsel office, forwarded the requests to Gene Smith with instructions to collect the pertinent messages from Meyer’s phone. The next day, Vannatta emailed two other athletics staffers, including Brian Voltolini, director of football operations.
None of the staffers Vannatta emailed ever approached Meyer, they told investigators, to ask him for his phone in the days that followed.
On Aug. 1, the report stated, Voltolini approached Urban Meyer on the practice field, and told him a “bad article” had just been published.
Voltolini then discussed with Meyer how he could change the settings on his phone so it didn’t save any text messages more than a year old, the report states. When the university took Meyer’s phone, it was set to only store text messages for a year.
Investigators noted they could not conclusively determine whether Meyer changed his settings after the damaging story.
“It is nonetheless concerning that his first reaction to a negative media piece … was to worry about the media getting access to information,” investigators wrote. “Often, although not always, such reactions evidence consciousness of guilt.”