Tony buzbee filing lawsuit against Deshaun Watson? Hints at mistreating women

I'm hoping this signals movement on the legal front and he's just showing potential suitors he's putting in the work. If the 2 lawyers can quick measuring each other's appendages and start negotiating to move this towards a settlement hopefully everyone can move on and begin healing. The longer this draws out is not good for either side.

 

You post as if you're optimistic on Watson remaining with the team. I'd put that number under 20%.

 

Not at all, he was gone before, but he's really gonna go now. The challenge will be getting as much value for him as possible. What would be terrible is shedding him for a substandard return and then he rolling to a Super Bowl with his next team.

 

Its still hard for me to accept the fact that for the first time in our history we get a once in a generation legit franchise qb but somehow ownership first messes it all up then the player gets himself into legal issues and now even if the team didn't want to trade him they'll have to now. I'm holding out hope for a miracle that we somehow keep him but I've run out of hope from this franchise esp with easterbunny still in the fold.

 

The longer this drags out, I think a serious concern has to start focusing on the possibility of the Texans cutting him. It seems implausible on the surface, but the Texans are just incompetent enough to do it.

If the season starts up without resolution and he reports to camp, the NFL might go ahead and put him on the commissioner’s exemption list. Then the Texans will have to pay him for a season he already threatened to sit out. It’s only $15m this year, but if he goes into next year, it becomes $40m. And it might be financially beneficial for Deshaun to drag it out that long and force the Texans’ hand. If they decide to cut him rather than pay the $40m, he can settle the next day and sign with any team he wants. The Texans end up with nothing.

This game is much more than just Buzbee vs. Hardin. There are some big time calls to be made here. Goodell, in trying to protect the league, can really screw over one of its teams. This is a true poker game.

 

Why would the NFL put them on the exempt list? He's literally in no legal trouble at all, and it's very likely this is settled before the season. I don't think that's a possibility at all. The Texans could cut him, because they're just that incompetent, but I just don't think they're going to do that. That would be one of the worst moves In sport history considering the trade value he would still have.

Best case scenario this is resolved and Watson returns to be our starter. Driskel and Finley get cut, which wouldn't mean much to us cap wise. Worst case scenario, in my opinion, is that Watson is traded for less than adequate value, tie rod Taylor starts the whole season, and we head into the draft next year not knowing what we have in Mills. If you trade Watson, in my opinion you need to get the three first round picks from Philadelphia, and it's also imperative that Mills starts at least five games so you know what you have in him. If you don't like what you have in him, you can take any quarterback you want next year.

 

I don’t think he should be put on the exempt list. I hope he isn’t, because it would essentially be forcing the Texans to pay a player who had already planned to forgo his salary by sitting out. But I would not be surprised by anything Goodell does.

 

Anyone see the SI article? Apparently a lot more detail and more smoke.

 

https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/05/21/n...watson-sexual-misconduct-lawsuits-daily-cover



They didn’t know what to do.

So a licensed massage therapist who worked with Ashley Solis reached out to an industry veteran, asking for help. “I have a colleague that was solicited during a session by a professional athlete at her in-home studio,” she wrote over Facebook Messenger.

Something had happened during Solis’s appointment with Deshaun Watson, an unlikely client for her nascent massage therapy business on March 30, 2020. That message, not previously public, was sent the next day, according to the veteran therapist. That was before any lawsuits, high-profile lawyers or p.r. spin, proof that Solis was upset enough to seek help in the immediate aftermath of the appointment. It is one of many new pieces of information Sports Illustrated uncovered over the course of two months reporting on and around the lawsuits against Watson. Along with reviewing exchanges—like the one above—that were previously unreported or shared only in part, SI vetted information that has been dispensed both by the lawyers for Watson and for the 22 plaintiffs, which has sometimes been incomplete, out-of-context or otherwise imprecise.

SI also interviewed five women—not among either the 22 plaintiffs or the list of 18 therapists who supported Watson in testimonials provided to his defense attorney’s firm—who worked with or were contacted by Watson, including one who both worked on Watson and referred him to other licensed massage therapists, or LMTs.

One thing is clear: Warnings about Watson had been percolating in the Houston massage therapy community for some time. Some were mundane—he was a last-minute booker, do not expect a tip. Others were far more troubling. Two LMTs told SI they were warned last year by others in their profession about Watson’s inappropriate conduct, including his making sexually explicit motions on the table or insisting on using a small towel that would inadequately cover his genital area, rather than the standard massage draping. And that same industry veteran Solis’s colleague contacted says she talked to Watson about his conduct after an appointment she set up in 2019—the one detailed to SI in March by a woman we called Mary, who has not filed a lawsuit. After that appointment, the veteran therapist told Mary in a text message that “only 1 therapist hasn’t complained” about Watson.

SI also spoke to numerous other Houston-area LMTs, multiple NFL players about massage therapy to get a better understanding of an LMT’s role in professional football and a therapist who says she had problematic interactions with other professional athletes, shedding light on the hazards women can face in an occupation too often conflated with sex work. (Solis and the other 21 plaintiffs were not made available for interviews.)

[…]

One person with close ties to the Texans says a member of the team’s medical staff, worried about increased risk of injury to the franchise quarterback, was concerned last year when they were told Watson was seeking out therapists on Instagram.

[…]

One of the LMTs SI spoke to was surprised when Watson DM’ed her in the spring of 2020, because she does not specialize in sports massage and works in a suburb about an hour outside of Houston. When she told him she was not able to work at the time because of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions, he asked, “Is it cause you’re scared you’ll loose[sic] your license.” She told him yes, and he replied, “You’ll be good with me. But okay.” (Both messages were sent around 11 p.m.) She never worked on him, but the date of an incident described in one of the lawsuits jumped out to her: It was the day after Watson had messaged her. (SI reviewed screenshots of this exchange, which appear to be sent from Watson’s verified Instagram account; Hardin, saying he would not address reporting from anonymous sources, did not provide a response to questions regarding this exchange or other anonymous accounts. SI has granted this LMT’s request for anonymity to protect her privacy and her business.)

“I was extremely relieved,” she says. “Because I will tell you, I really did almost message him and be like, O.K., because [landing him as a client] could mean so much money for my business. But in my gut, it felt off.”

Seventeen of the 22 plaintiffs say in their lawsuits that Watson made first contact with them through social media, where they market their businesses. (The majority of plaintiffs also say they had never before worked on any Texans players.) The five other plaintiffs say either their boss set up their appointment with Watson or they were referred to him through a mutual friend.

The veteran therapist who Solis’s colleague reached out to for advice has referred Watson to multiple other therapists—including Mary, who previously shared her account of Watson’s misconduct with SI, and one of the other plaintiffs. This veteran therapist agreed to an interview with SI, but only under the condition of anonymity since her name has not yet been shared publicly; we granted her request because of the importance of hearing an account from—at this point—the only therapist to publicly acknowledge having referred Watson to others. However, parts of her story shifted over a series of interviews. SI will refer to her by the pseudonym Susan.

Susan has been a licensed massage therapist for more than a decade, with a clientele she says is about 90% athletes. She’s worked on Watson “many times over several years” and says she’s “only had professional experiences.” Susan has eight other therapists she sends clients to when her schedule is full, which she has done regularly with Watson. These therapists, including Mary, had contracts with Susan, who says she charges the client for the session, subtracts her referral fee and pays the other therapist about 70%.

Mary told SI that during her appointment with Watson in the fall of 2019, he purposely removed the towel covering him, told her she could touch and move his exposed penis (she ignored his suggestion), and began thrusting his pelvis into the air after developing an erection; she also noticed what she believed to be pre-ejaculate on Watson’s stomach. Susan confirms that Mary reported concerns about Watson’s conduct to her directly following their appointment, specifically the thrusting and that he wanted to be uncovered. She says she apologized to Mary and was “almost embarrassed” that happened with one of her clients. Susan says she then talked to Watson about his conduct with Mary, but declines to share details of that conversation, calling it “confidential.”

“I've had one person report something to me” about Watson, Susan told SI, confirming that this person was Mary. “And I had a conversation with [Watson]. I was confident that wasn't going to happen again after our conversation.”

But Mary says Susan told her something different after her appointment with Watson: that Mary was not the first therapist Susan had referred who reported back concerns about Watson’s conduct. In a November 2019 text message about Watson, Susan wrote to Mary, “whether the creepy stuff is his intention or not, he does it every time,” adding the parenthetical, “only 1 therapist hasn’t complained.” (SI reviewed this message, which was sent from a phone number confirmed to be Susan’s.)

 

Susan at first refuted Mary’s account of this conversation, but when asked specifically about this text message in a follow-up interview, did not dispute that she sent it. She contends that at the time Mary worked on him, she’d referred Watson to only one other therapist: Masako Jones, one of the 18 who shared a statement of support for Watson, in which Jones said the behavior described in the lawsuits “doesn’t sound like him at all.” Asked what she meant by Watson doing it “every time,” Susan said she was referring to his request to use a small towel or washcloth, but later said she meant a towel instead of a sheet draping. Susan maintains that she did not find Watson’s behavior “creepy” but used that characterization based on Mary’s account to her, and that she was going out of her way to be supportive of Mary.

Mary told SI she continued with her appointment with Watson after he removed his towel—something that had never happened with any of her more than 1,000 other clients—because she trusted Susan “that nothing weird was going to happen.” Her payment was also coming from Susan.

Watson reached out to Mary two more times from his verified Instagram account, each time not seeming to realize he’d worked with her before. Recognizing he could be an important client for growing her business, she was open to booking him again, but first tried to set clear boundaries. Mary told him that he made her uncomfortable during their appointment and that she requires full-sheet draping. He never booked.

“At the time, I took it more as he did this to me, rather than this possibly could have been avoided if I would have known,” Mary says. “It's pretty upsetting … that I was put in that situation. I have no idea what the intention was, in putting me in that position.”

Susan continued referring Watson to other therapists after Mary’s experience with him. She estimates she’s referred Watson to four other therapists since the start of 2020, as recently as last September—that referral was to her sister, who is also an LMT, which Susan says shows she did not view Watson as a threat. Susan says she also connected Watson with a friend of hers last year who wanted to get into sports massage, but that was not a contractor arrangement. Susan’s friend is now one of the 22 plaintiffs, though she declines to say which one.

[…]

While Buzbee says he and his colleagues thoroughly vet claims—including a vetting process for Solis that took “several months”—lawsuits were filed at a stunning pace. Mary told SI she contacted Buzbee’s firm after the first few complaints were filed but felt pressured to sign a contract for them to represent her and declined. She instead began working with U.A. Lewis, a civil rights attorney, to explore her options but to this point has not filed suit. (Says Buzbee, in an email response: “I hate that she felt that way. Our lawyers, however, can’t act on behalf of anyone without a signed power of attorney.”)

In a sworn declaration, Watson’s marketing manager, Bryan Burney, said one of the plaintiffs who is alleging forced oral sex asked for a $30,000 settlement in mid-January, in exchange for her “indefinite silence.” Burney said she told him their contact was consensual, and that he then received a call from a man who said he was her business manager; according to Burney, that man characterized their demand as “blackmail.” Hardin’s team has also pointed to Buzbee’s firm’s initially seeking a $100,000 private settlement for Solis before filing the first civil complaint as being at odds with Buzbee’s repeated public assertions that these cases are not about money. (Buzbee responded in an email: “I already settled cases this year of more than 100 million. We took these cases to bring attention to the issues involved.”)

[…]

At their April press conference, members of Watson’s defense team cited their client’s football success and the “target on his back” after earning a $160 million contract. Letitia Quinones, one of his lawyers, mentioned Watson’s winning a high school state championship, then a national title at Clemson. “Do you think that he wasn’t getting attention from young women then?” she asked. Quinones also identified herself as a sexual assault survivor. “When I think back over what happened to me,” she said, “I would not—the first person I’d come in contact with to get justice wouldn't be a plaintiff’s lawyer.”

In a statement provided to SI, which was also signed by Quinones, Hardin stood by the remarks: “If you had asked Ms. Quinones why she [made that statement], she would have explained that in her experience as a sexual assault survivor and a criminal defense lawyer of over 22 years, sexual assault survivors, who choose to make an outcry, do so to law enforcement first instead of to a plaintiff’s attorney. We believe that was a very legitimate observation for her to make.”

[…]

The exchange between Solis’s colleague and the veteran therapist—Susan—showed the lack of options Solis felt after her appointment with Watson. In her civil suit, Solis said Watson purposely touched her hand with his exposed and erect penis during a March 30, 2020, massage at her home. When she asked him to leave, according to her complaint, he made what she perceived to be a threatening statement about her career. The next day, her colleague sought advice from Susan.

“She feels like she can’t do anything about reporting him to anyone and that it will come back to bite her,” Solis’s colleague wrote, one day after Solis’s massage appointment with Watson. “We’ve discussed a couple different options. But with your clientele base I was wondering what you might do? Nothing physical happened but he has continued to contact her in hopes to keep her quiet.”

Susan replied: “You dont [sic] have to tell me, but out of curiosity, was it Deshaun Watson?”

Her advice to Solis’s colleague was to block the player’s number, or even to “pass him off so she doesn’t have to deal with it.” Susan wrote that they could report the encounter to police, but her understanding was they “wont [sic] do much.” She further offered to put her in touch with a player personnel employee for the athlete’s team, but added they would not do much about this kind of situation, either.

“Just lmk [let me know] if she wants me to talk to anyone,” Susan wrote in another message. “If it is him, I normally am the one who coordinates his therapists when I cant [sic] make it (due to this issue actually) so I am very close to his team. I will ensure his team handles him.”

Buzbee read aloud some of these messages at the April 6 press conference where Solis revealed her identity for the first time, before the plaintiffs were compelled to refile with their real names. Buzbee did not identify the sender, the recipient or that they were about Solis. He also omitted the first message to which Susan responded. (Susan confirmed she was the recipient, and SI reviewed the full exchange, in which Solis is named several months later.)

At the time this message was sent, Susan had months earlier spoken to Watson about his conduct with Mary. But Susan contends she asked whether it was Watson because he had asked to book a massage with her a few days earlier, in a text message she read to SI. She says she told Watson she could not work on him because of the state’s COVID-19 regulations, and she assumed he likely would have booked elsewhere around that time.

Susan also says that her response was based on Solis’s colleague’s characterization that “nothing physical happened,” and that she did not think the player’s NFL team would step in because the therapist was neither employed nor contracted by them. As for coordinating Watson’s therapists “due to this issue,” Susan told SI she was talking about less-experienced therapists who would be uncomfortable working on areas like the abs or the groin.

 

[…]

Susan next heard from Solis’s colleague just before Christmas in 2020—a full month before Buzbee told the Washington Post that Solis first contacted his firm. (When asked about the discrepancy, Buzbee, via email, responded, “She was in contact with us for several months prior to filing the lawsuit.”) This time she forwarded Susan a screenshot of a message that asked whether Susan would talk to “Ashley’s lawyer (in reference to this summer and the Texans player).” The colleague identified Ashley Solis by name and said that her attorney was “Cornelia Harvey.” She then shared a phone number that matches Cornelia Brandfield-Harvey, an associate at The Buzbee Law Firm. This exchange was before Week 16 of the NFL season and weeks before Watson’s trade demand, defusing the conspiracy theory that has swirled, even in some NFL circles, that the suits are somehow related to Watson’s discord with the team.

Susan says she told Watson’s marketing manager about potential litigation, but she did not speak with anyone from Buzbee’s firm.

[…]

Buzbee has never shied from the spotlight, even beyond the courtroom. He ran a self-funded mayoral campaign in Houston in 2019, emerging as the main challenger to incumbent Sylvester Turner. After losing, he dabbled in a reality series built around the city’s eateries. In 2014 he bought billboards in the Houston area encouraging the Texans to draft fellow Texas A&M alum Johnny Manziel. (In recalling those billboards on Instagram last year, he referred to late Texans owner Bob McNair as his “neighbor,” fueling conspiracy theories that the team was behind the allegations against Watson. While Buzbee lives near the McNairs, he is not close with the family.) And he was at the center of a controversy in his upscale River Oaks neighborhood in 2017 when he parked a World War II–era tank in front of his home.

While Buzbee’s at times haphazard handling of these cases does not mean the underlying facts are any more or less true, his theatrics have occasionally clouded the serious issues at hand. (In a series of emails, SI submitted questions to Buzbee and his colleagues regarding inconsistencies between his public statements and information gathered over the course of SI’s reporting—including the incorrect timeline involving Solis’s contact with his firm, mentioned above. All quotes contributed to him below were sent via email, unless otherwise specified.)

[…]

Susan also told SI that Buzbee took her Facebook Messenger exchange with Solis’s colleague out of context by leaving out the message in which Solis’s colleague wrote “nothing physical happened.” This description of the incident was secondhand and shouldn’t necessarily be taken literally (Buzbee says Solis “never used those words”). But that characterization is what Susan says led her to tell the colleague that Solis had no recourse with the police or NFL.

When asked why only part of the exchange was shared with media, Buzbee, responded, “after the fact spinning of the truth doesn’t change the truth. She knew who it was, because word was out about his behavior.” He added, “We have released all emails, to not only the public but also to the police and NFL, along with other authorities.” (SI also reached out to Solis’s colleague via email, but did not receive a response.)

Buzbee referred to Susan as the woman who had “made the referral” and “set up the massage” when presenting these exchanges to the media, but Solis’s lawsuit makes clear that Watson contacted Solis via Instagram, not via referral. Buzbee confirmed initial contact was made over Instagram and said if he indicated otherwise, “that’s my mistake.” (When asked if the “referring therapist” comment was regarding one of his other clients—Susan told SI she referred Watson to one of the other plaintiffs—he answered, “don’t know.”)

[…]

About two weeks after the first suits against Watson were filed, a lawyer who said he was representing Texans owner Cal McNair did approach both attorneys, seeking to broker a mediation. A statement from the Texans organization, emailed by a team spokesperson, says, “Mr. McNair was aware that his personal attorney contacted both parties to suggest mediation. Mr. McNair has had no personal involvement in any of those discussions. The Houston Texans organization has not had any direct contact with either party.”

Hardin says Watson and his team would only engage in settlement discussions if there was a NDA in place, covering solely the mediation itself, “because they feared Mr. Buzbee would misuse the process.” The NDA, which Hardin’s firm provided to SI, specifies that there is no confidentiality in place after the conclusion of mediation. The lawyer who said he was affiliated with McNair brought the NDA, which was drafted by Hardin’s firm, to Buzbee. Both he and Watson’s agent, David Mulugheta, signed the document, which was dated April 12.

[…]

Buzbee confirmed to SI that four of his clients have met with NFL investigators, and said they and his colleagues “didn’t feel comfortable” during the first three interviews, so he sat in on the fourth. A person with knowledge of the NFL investigation says neither Buzbee nor his colleagues expressed this during or after the interviews and that NFL investigators first learned of these concerns through his comments to FOX 26. In response to Buzbee’s characterization, an NFL spokesperson cited the “stellar reputation” of Lisa Friel, the former sex crimes prosecutor who is now the NFL’s special counsel for investigations, for conducting investigations with “compassion and fairness.” Buzbee declined to detail his concerns, but there are valid reasons why people outside the NFL may not want to cooperate with the league’s process, including not wanting to interfere with a civil suit or police investigation, as well as the potential for their privacy to be further sacrificed.

NFL investigators have not yet met with Watson, according to the person with knowledge of the investigation—but they have met with some of the therapists who aren’t among the plaintiffs but are affiliated with Genuine Touch, the company contracted with the Texans (Honn, the practice’s owner, did not return a phone call or message seeking comment). Additionally, Jennifer Gaffney, who works as part of Friel’s team, requested records from the Houston Police Department on May 3, according to a records request response received by SI.

 

I really don't know why people think this all goes away with a settlement.

Women are claiming rape here.

 

There will always be the taint of the accusations, but a settlement means there is no testimony in court and no possibility of criminal charges (which were unlikely anyway). But it also means he can get on with his life. Going to court will take years. The settlement is coming, they are just haggling over the language.

 

His fans won't care no matter how many women he rapes.

 

The guy seems like a complete jackass. I want him gone. I don’t want to give him away because that would be bad business, but for a fair return I’d like to see his oily ass hit the road.

 

Part of me has thought for a while that that was why he requested the trade.

 

Do you have a shrine to the lynch mobs in your double-wide?