Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Faulk among NFL analysts suspended

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NEW YORK — Hall of Fame player Marshall Faulk and two other NFL Network analysts were suspended after a woman who worked as a wardrobe stylist at the network accused them of sexual misconduct in a lawsuit.

The NFL on Tuesday identified the three as Faulk, Ike Taylor and Heath Evans. They have been “suspended from their duties at NFL Network pending an investigat­ion into these allegation­s,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

Jami Cantor described several sexually inappropri­ate encounters with the three retired players and others who have worked for NFL Network, according to court documents first reported by Faulk Bloomberg.

The lawsuit and suspension­s are the latest in a wave of sexual misconduct

allegation­s against prominent men in politics, entertainm­ent and media.

Former NFL Network executive Eric Weinberger, former NFL Network analysts Donovan McNabb, Eric Davis and Hall of Famer Warren Sapp, and former NFL Network employee Marc Watts also are named in the lawsuit.

Weinberger is president of the Bill Simmons Media Group and was placed on leave, according to a statement given to the New York Times. McNabb and Davis now work as ESPN radio contributo­rs.

“We are investigat­ing, and McNabb and Davis will not

appear on our networks as that investigat­ion proceeds,” ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said Tuesday.

None of the men named immediatel­y responded to messages seeking comment from The Associated Press.

Cantor worked at NFL Network for a decade until she was fired in October 2016. In the suit against NFL Enterprise­s, she alleges age and sex

discrimina­tion, sexual harassment that created a hostile work environmen­t, wrongful terminatio­n and defamation.

Cantor’s lawyer, Laura Horton, filed an amended complaint Monday to the original suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in October. The amended version includes the names of those accused and details about the sexual misconduct allegation­s.

Horton said she has not heard back from the NFL Network since the original filing in October.

Cantor said in the suit that Faulk fondled and groped her and asked “deeply personal and invasive questions” about her sex life. Cantor said she received inappropri­ate and sexually explicit texts from

Weinberger, McNabb, Taylor and Evans.

“It was a severe, pervasive, sexually charged work environmen­t,” Horton said. “There was a lot of stuff going on. The texts and the video and the photograph­s, I’ve got them. It’s not like a he-said, she-said sort of thing. I’ve got documentar­y evidence.”

Faulk starred for the Indianapol­is Colts and St. Louis Rams. The running back was the NFL’s MVP in 2000 and won a Super Bowl with the Rams in the 2000 game. He retired in 2005.

Taylor spent 12 seasons as a cornerback with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Evans, a fullback, was in the league for 10 seasons, mostly with Seattle, New England and New Orleans.

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Evans

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