DC sues Commanders owner Dan Snyder over ‘deception’ of residents
The attorney general for the District of Columbia says his office is filing a civil consumer protection lawsuit against the Washington Commanders, owner Dan Snyder, the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell.
Karl Racine announced the civil complaint for colluding to deceive District residents at a news conference on Thursday.
Racine said the team and league violated DC consumers’ rights based on what they knew about the organization’s workplace misconduct, alleging Snyder lied about his knowledge of the situation.
Four posters flanked Racine during his announcement, outlining some of the history of the team’s rebranding efforts that included references to DC and its flag and the history of the NFL’s investigation into the organization’s workplace culture.
“Dan Snyder assured fans that he would fully cooperate with the investigation and the results could be trusted,” one of the posters read. “That was a lie: He repeatedly attempted to interfere, and the fans could not trust results that were never made public. Because Snyder had a veto.”
The findings of Beth Wilkinson’s investigation were not released in July 2021 when the league fined the team $10m for having a toxic workplace culture. The final poster read: “Fans’ outrage intensified when it became clear that Snyder lied to them: There would be no transparency and no reckoning. That impacted consumer spending decisions.”
Lawyers Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent more than 40 former team employees, said the civil complaint “is further evidence of what we’ve long known: that both the Commanders and the NFL have engaged in
deception and lies designed to conceal the team’s decades of sexual harassment and abuse, which has impacted not only the victims of that abuse, but also consumers in the District of Columbia”.
They added: “The filing of this complaint also marks an important step in validating the experiences of the brave women and men who came forward and in achieving, for the first time, a level of transparency into the scope of the misconduct.”
The news conference caught the Commanders by surprise, according to a statement from a spokesperson that said they learned about it on social media.
“The Commanders have fully cooperated with the AG’s investigation for nearly a year,” the spokesperson said. “As recently as Monday, a lawyer for the team met with the AG who did not suggest at that time that he intended to take any action and, in fact, revealed fundamental misunderstandings of the underlying facts.”
The team is being investigated on several fronts, including by the attorneys general of DC and Virginia, Congress and the league. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy last week said former US attorney Mary Jo White’s review on behalf of the league is ongoing and there is no timetable for when it will be completed.
The Snyders announced last week they hired Bank of America Securities to look into selling part or all of the team. A team spokesperson said they were “exploring all options” in regards to the organization that Forbes values at $5.6bn.
On Saturday, Benjamin St-Juste became the first Washington Commanders player to suggest that the team would benefit from an end to Snyder’s ownership.
In an interview with Le Journal de Quebec, St-Juste hinted that he would welcome a change of ownership.
“Since I arrived here, there’s been a dark cloud over our organization,” said the second-year cornerback. “Every time something good happens on the pitch, something bad happens off it. It would give us great energy to have a fresh start and regain the confidence of the fans.”
The Commanders’ off-field turmoil appears to have hurt the team’s on-field performances. They last won a playoff game in the 2005 season and regularly play in front of vast swathes of empty seats.