Former Raiders head coach Joe Gruden has filed a lawsuit against the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell alleging that they 'orchestrat...
Former Raiders head coach Joe Gruden has filed a lawsuit against the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell alleging that they 'orchestrated a malicious campaign' to 'selectively leak' offensive emails he sent between 2011 and 2018 in an effort to destroy his career and reputation.
The 58-year-old Gruden resigned last month after racist, homophobic, and misogynistic emails he sent to then-WFT president Bruce Allen surfaced in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The NFL has continuously denied leaking the Gruden emails, which he sent during his tenure as an ESPN analyst.
Gruden's messages were included among 650,000 emails in the NFL's 10-month probe into hostile workplace and sexual harassment allegations against the Washington Football Team (WFT). Only a handful of other emails from the league investigation have surfaced, none of which directly incriminate WFT owner Dan Snyder, his wife and co-CEO Tanya, or anyone else currently working for that club.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Eighth Judicial District Court in Nevada, accuses the NFL of a 'Soviet-style character assassination.'
'The complaint alleges that the defendants selectively leaked Gruden's private correspondence to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times in order to harm Gruden's reputation and force him out of his job,' Gruden's attorney, Adam Hosmer-Henner, said in a statement.
'There is no explanation or justification for why Gruden's emails were the only ones made public out of the 650,000 emails collected in the NFL's investigation of the Washington Football Team or for why the emails were held for months before being released in the middle of the Raiders' season.'
Ex-Las Vegas Raiders head coach Joe Gruden (pictured) is suing the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell over the 'selectively leaked' emails that led to his resignation last month
In the emails, Gruden uses a racist trope to describe players' union executive director DeMaurice Smith, an African American, and also called Roger Goodell (pictured) a 'f*****'
In the emails, Gruden said African-American players' union executive director DeMaurice Smith had 'lips the size of Michelin tires' and also called Goodell a 'f*****.'
In a statement to DailyMail.com, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy called Gruden's allegations 'entirely meritless' and said the league would 'vigorously defend against these claims.'
As a result of the hostile workplace investigation into the WFT that ended in July, the club was fined $10 million Snyder agreed to cede day-to-day control of the franchise to his wife, Tanya.
Gruden had remained silent on the emails until speaking with an HBO producer in late October. As HBO NFL reporter Andrea Kremer explained on the 'Real Sports' podcast, Gruden claimed there is more to the story, but wasn't quite ready to comment.
'He's still in Las Vegas,' Kramer said, describing the exchange between Gruden and her producer, Maggie Burbank. 'He says he's letting the dust settle.
'He said, ''People who know me know what I stand for for 58 years. I have a resume of 58 years.'' He said, ''The truth will come out.'' It's certainly cryptic.'
Only a handful of other emails from the league investigation have surfaced, none of which directly incriminate WFT owner Dan Snyder (left), his wife and co-CEO Tanya (right), or anyone else currently working for that club
The controversy against Raider's coach Jon Gruden started on Friday when the Wall Street Journal reported that Gruden wrote in a 2011 email to former Washington executive Bruce Allen that NFL union chief DeMaurice Smith (pictured), who he called 'Dumboriss Smith,' had 'lips the size of Michelin tires'
Attorneys for former WFT employees, the NFL players' union, Congressional Democrats, and Raiders owner Mark Davis have demanded the league release its report on the WFT.
However, citing confidentiality concerns, Goodell has steadfastly refused.
Speaking at the owners meetings in New York last month, Goodell said the league wanted to protect the roughly 150 former employees who spoke to outside counsel Beth Wilkinson.
Bruce Allen, the recipient of Gruden's emails, was fired in Washington in 2019 following a 3-13 season. Since then, he and team owner Daniel Snyder have battled each other in court over severance pay and Snyder's claim that Allen spread false information about him to a website
'When you make a promise to protect the anonymity, to make sure that we get the right information, you need to stay with it,' Goodell said. 'And so we're very conscious of making sure that we're protecting those who came forward. They were incredibly brave.'
Goodell sidestepped a question about releasing a redacted report, saying he felt what the league did was appropriate.
The Commissioner did say that the NFL released a summary of its investigation and that Snyder has not been allowed to handle any of the day-to-day operations of the franchise since July.
The team, valued by Forbes at $4.2 billion, was also fined $10 million in July.
'I do think he has been held accountable and the organization has been held accountable,' Goodell said.
The investigation was initiated in 2020 following Washington Post reports that female WFT employees made sexual harassment and hostile workplace allegations against the club. Wilkinson was initially hired by the WFT to conduct the investigation until the NFL assumed control of the probe, after which, she reported to the commissioner's office.
When the NFL was alerted about Gruden's emails, league officials reviewed them and submitted conclusions to Goodell. The emails were then sent to Raiders owner Mark Davis as the league waited on him to take action, according to the Post.
At the owners meetings, Davis joined many others in demanding to see the league's report from the WFT probe, which Goodell has steadfastly rejected.
'Yeah, I think that there should be,' Davis told reporters when asked if there should be a publicized report on the investigation.
There has been speculation that the emails were leaked by the Snyders or their employees.
NBC's Peter King, a veteran NFL reporter, wrote that 'several smart people in the league think the leaks come from the Snyder camp' and that reporting has since been matched by the Washington Post.
Meanwhile, a former WFT cheerleader and marketing director has accused Dan of leaking Gruden's emails.
Melanie Coburn, who worked with the team's cheerleaders for 14 years, claims he leaked the emails in an effort to push blame for the team's sexual harassment scandal onto Allen.
'I believe Dan Snyder leaked these emails,' Coburn told Fox News on October 19. 'I believe he's trying to put all the blame on Bruce Allen.'
According to Coburn, private investigators working for Dan spoke to former team cheerleaders to question them about Allen, who was fired in Washington after a 3-13 season in 2019.
'He sent over a dozen private investigators to my colleagues' homes across the country … to show up on cheerleaders' doorstops and ask them what their relationship with Bruce Allen was,' Coburn said.
'I feel like he's trying to pin everything on Bruce, right, and place all the blame for all of the bad culture on him, which just isn't true.'
Melanie Coburn, a former employee of the Washington Football Team, speaks to reporters during the NFL football owners meeting on Tuesday in New York. Coburn, who worked with the team's cheerleaders for 14 years, claims Snyder leaked the emails in an effort to push blame for the team's sexual harassment scandal onto Allen. She has also called on the NFL to release the findings of its investigation into the Washington Football Team
Snyder's attorney, Jordan Siev, denied Coburn's accusations in a statement to DailyMail.com.
'Any suggestion by Ms. Coburn that anyone associated with the Washington Football Team was behind any leaks concerning Jon Gruden is categorically false and part of a pattern of misinformation being spread by Ms. Coburn,' Siev said.
Tayna Snyder reportedly denied the leak at last month's owners meetings in New York, four sources told the Washington Post.
Allen did not respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
If Coburn's claim is correct, this wouldn't be the first time he shared a portion of these emails.
Redacted versions of some of Gruden's emails were also filed in federal court last June as part of Snyder's efforts to compel Allen to produce discovery in a separate defamation lawsuit filed in India against a tabloid website. Several of the emails included in that court filing and reviewed by DailyMail.com are among the messages leaked to the Times.
Snyder was attempting to prove Allen was involved in a plot to falsely connect him to disgraced investor Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who committed suicide in prison in 2019.
His motion directing discovery from Allen in the case was dropped in April.
The two have also been at odds over over several issues, including Allen's severance, which Snyder was forced to pay in full in 2020.
On Wednesday, Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis (pictured) said he hopes to see a written report of the WFT investigation, which resulting in the resignation of his coach, Jon Gruden
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