HE'S IN A SORRY STATE
Last Watson accuser won’t settle until she gets sincere apology
The lone remaining plaintiff with a civil suit alleging harassment and indecent sexual assault against Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson said she has not accepted any settlement offers, “in part because they have not included any sincere acknowledgment of remorse and wrongdoings, nor have they included any promises of rehabilitative treatment.”
In a first-person story written for The Daily Beast and posted Friday, Lauren Baxley identified herself as a former massage therapist and the other party in the last unsettled suit of the 25 that Watson faced (one woman dropped her suit in April).
The NFL, the Players Association and Watson reached a settlement Thursday that Watson will be suspended for the first 11 games of the regular season and fined $5 million. Despite the lawsuits, and even more accusations, two Texas grand juries declined to indict Watson on criminal charges earlier this year.
Though Watson has offered two apologies, he has maintained his innocence throughout. When asked about the contradiction in apologizing while continuing to deny the accusations, Watson said he said he was sorry for the “people that were triggered.”
Baxley wrote that she was “forced into quitting [as a massage therapist] for the sake of my health” and safety in June 2020.
Describing herself as “just one of dozens of women whose lives have been eternally harmed by his sexual violence,” Baxley pleaded for the Browns to do more.
“I sincerely, with humility in my relative anonymity, ask that those in power over Deshaun Watson make swift and stringent decisions to prevent further acts of harm against women,” she wrote.