Patriots drop Brown amid sexual assault allegations
Wide receiver faces sexual assault claims, intimidation
The New England Patriots released Antonio Brown on Friday afternoon, ending his brief but turbulent tenure with the team as the NFL was investigating him for multiple accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior, including rape.
“The New England Patriots are releasing Antonio Brown,” the team said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard work of many people over the past 11 days, but we feel that it is best to move in a different direction at this time.”
Cathy Lanier, the NFL’s chief of security, was scheduled to meet Friday with a woman who said she endured unwelcome sexual advances from Antonio Brown two years ago. This week, the woman accused the wide receiver of sending her texts she found intimidating.
The meeting, according to Debra Katz, one of the woman’s lawyers, was arranged “to ensure that my client’s safety concerns are being addressed and to preserve electronic evidence.” NFL officials also spoke with the woman’s lawyers, Katz and Lisa Banks, another lawyer for the woman, on Friday morning.
Katz called Brown’s departure from the Patriots “swift justice” and said her client’s accusations about Brown were “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
The release capped a stormy period for one of the NFL’s marquee franchises and Brown, who was accused of rape in a federal lawsuit filed last week by Britney Taylor, a former gymnast who met Brown while they attended Central Michigan and whom he later hired as a trainer. Taylor’s lawyers spoke with the NFL after the suit was filed, and she met with the league this week.
Brown, 31, who has denied the accusations from both women through his lawyer, Darren Heitner, posted about his release several times on social media, saying “Thank you for the opportunity” to the Patriots on Twitter.
Brown’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, wrote on Twitter that it was “unfortunate things didn’t work out with the Patriots” but that “Antonio is healthy and is looking forward to his next opportunity in the NFL.”
Whether or not Brown gets another opportunity remains to be seen. But even after his release, the NFL’s investigation into his actions will continue, according to Brian McCarthy, a league spokesman.
Ahead of Brown’s release, Patriots coach Bill Belichick abruptly ended his Friday news conference as reporters repeatedly asked questions about the receiver that the coach declined to answer. Belichick said he would
answer only football questions and walked out of the room when asked again about Brown.
The text messages, first reported by Sports Illustrated, were sent Wednesday night by a cellphone belonging to Brown, according to Katz. They went to a group of people that included Heitner, Brown’s lawyer, and the woman who has accused Brown of making inappropriate advances. The texts seemed to encourage a third party to research the woman’s history, and they included a photograph of her children.
Brown was instructed by the league and the Patriots to stop communicating with the woman, according to Katz and Banks.
“I can’t connect the dots,” Katz said, referring to the Patriots’ cutting Brown a day after her client’s complaint had been presented in a letter to the NFL. “But the NFL this morning said they immediately contacted the Patriots after we talked last night and told us that neither Antonio Brown nor his associates would be contacting our client anymore.”
The woman, an artist, had told Sports Illustrated this week that while she was working on a mural at Brown’s house in 2017, he approached her from behind while naked, holding a hand towel over his genitals. She was later fired, she said.
In the letter sent to the NFL Thursday evening by Katz and Banks, the artist also said Brown had sex with another woman while she was in the same room, working on the mural.
Brown’s tumult has spanned three franchises and included problems large and small — but until now nothing as serious as accusations of rape and other sexual misconduct.
Brown, 31, was traded in the offseason to the Oakland Raiders from the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he spent nine years, seven of them as a Pro Bowler.
He then missed much of training camp with blistered feet, apparently caused by a cryogenic therapy chamber. Next came a dispute over his helmet, with Brown preferring a decade-old model that is no longer approved for use. He lost a grievance about the matter.
Unhappy, Brown was very active on social media throughout the Raiders’ preseason, posting a letter from the team about his fines for missing practice as well as a phone conversation with his coach. An altercation with the Oakland Raiders general manager, Mike Mayock, and a plea from Brown for his release, helped bring an end of his brief time with Oakland. The Patriots swooped in to acquire him as a free agent within hours.