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    At Least 10 of Deshaun Watson's Accusers Have Filed Police Reports

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    The women said Deshaun Watson, the Houston Texans quarterback, sexually assaulted them or touched them inappropriately.The Houston Police Department has spoken to at least 10 women who have accused Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson of crimes from unwanted touching to sexual assault, according to records obtained by The New York Times.The records are heavily redacted, and do not reveal the names of the complainant or the suspect, but they were released in response to a request for all records related to Watson or his home address in Houston.A brief summary of each complaint is one of the few lines left unredacted in the documents. “Complainant stated that the suspect touched her inappropriately and exposed himself,” read one. Another said: “Complainant was sexually assaulted by the suspect. One suspect. No arrest. Complainant willing to prosecute.”Houston police spoke to the women between April 2 and May 20 of this year, and dates of their complaints ranged from September 2019 to December 2020. Watson has not been charged with any crimes.On March 16 of this year, the attorney Tony Buzbee announced that he was filing a lawsuit against Watson, accusing him of misconduct against an unnamed woman. Buzbee now represents 22 women who have sued Watson.In addition to the 10 women who have spoken to Houston police, the F.B.I. is investigating the case, according to Buzbee and Watson’s attorney, Rusty Hardin. Watson has spoken to the F.B.I., and Hardin has said agents are investigating one of Buzbee’s clients for extortion, while Buzbee has said they are investigating Watson’s conduct.The status of the criminal investigations into Watson’s conduct is unclear. Spokespeople for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and the F.B.I. did not respond to requests for comment, while a Houston police spokesman referred to the department’s statement from April 2 which reads, in part, “As with any allegation, the Houston Police Department is now conducting an investigation and will not comment further during the investigative process.”Last month, a Houston television station reported that a grand jury had been convened in the case. Under Texas law, every potential felony charge goes before a grand jury.Watson has not talked with police investigators, nor has he spoken with N.F.L. investigators about the accusations, Hardin said in an interview Friday. “The police have made no attempt to reach out to Deshaun, and we don’t expect law enforcement to do so until they complete an investigation,” Hardin said, adding that he would be surprised if the police investigation concluded before October.“The prosecutor has told us from the beginning that ultimately when the investigation is over, their findings will be presented to a grand jury,” Hardin said at a news conference last month. “We will be given the opportunity to tell our side, and we will get an evenhanded hearing.”In an interview earlier this week, Hardin said, “Every single week we are finding out more that makes us increasingly more comfortable that none of these cases will lead to valid criminal charges.”Hardin said he will begin questioning the accusers in the civil cases at depositions that will start this month. Watson’s deposition should happen by February, he said.The Times requested the records from the Houston police in April, but they were not provided until Friday.The police department asked the office of the Texas attorney general to rule on whether the records sought were exempt from disclosure. An assistant attorney general wrote in June that information that consists of the “detection, investigation or prosecution of crime” was exempt, but that basic information about an arrested person, an arrest or a crime is not. That basic information was what was released.One party that has not yet spoken to Watson: The N.F.L. has spoken to a number of the women who have sued Watson, according to Buzbee, but Hardin has said league investigators have not yet spoken to Watson. In cases involving criminal investigations, the N.F.L. typically waits until those investigations are completed before interviewing the player.The Texans open their season against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sept. 12, and it is unclear whether Watson will start at quarterback, or whether he will still be on the team. Watson participated in some of Houston’s training camp, though he did not play in any of the team’s three preseason games. According to numerous reports he has asked to be traded, a request that has been difficult to fulfill given legal and criminal investigations.Juliet Macur More

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      Deshaun Watson's Lawyer Issues Denial of Assault Claims

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      Since the quarterback’s initial denial on social media, an array of civil suits have been filed that accuse him of a pattern of coercive behavior and, in two cases, sexual assault.Allegations of assault and sexual misconduct against the Houston Texans star quarterback Deshaun Watson have mounted over the past week, as 16 women have filed civil suits against him and their lawyer has publicized the accusations on social media and in a news conference that was streamed online.Aside from an early denial of the first two claims, Watson has remained mostly silent. In the first substantive rebuttal to the accusations, Watson’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin, on Tuesday challenged the veracity of all the claims and described one of the two allegations of sexual assault as an attempt to blackmail his client.In a statement, Hardin blasted Tony Buzbee, the lawyer representing the women, saying he had “orchestrated a circuslike atmosphere by using social media to publicize 14 ‘Jane Doe’ lawsuits” to malign Watson’s reputation. Buzbee filed two additional suits on Tuesday.Watson’s attorney also said that he had “strong evidence” demonstrating that the first lawsuit claiming sexual assault was false, and he said that “calls into question the legitimacy of the other cases as well.”“I believe that any allegation that Deshaun forced a woman to commit a sexual act is completely false,” Hardin said.Since March 16, a total of 16 women have accused Watson of assault in civil lawsuits filed in Harris County, Texas, where he is a resident. According to the complaints, the incidents have taken place from March 2020 to this month. Although most are said to have occurred in Texas, two were said to have happened in Georgia, Watson’s home state, this month, and in California, where he was visiting in July 2020.The civil suits accuse Watson, 25, of engaging in a pattern of lewd behavior with women hired to provide personal services — coercing them to touch him in a sexual manner, exposing himself to women hired to do massages, or moving his body in ways that forced them to touch his penis. The suits that accuse him of sexual assault say that Watson pressured both women to perform oral sex during massages and that he grabbed one woman’s buttocks and vagina.Hardin’s statement referenced the first allegation of sexual assault, which is said to have occurred on Dec. 28, 2020. That day, according to the complaint, he coerced the woman to touch his genitals and perform oral sex. The woman was so upset, the complaint said, that she blacked out for a few minutes.The statement from Watson’s lawyer on Tuesday included a signed affidavit from Bryan Burney, the quarterback’s marketing manager for the past three years. The affidavit states that Burney spoke in January with a woman believed to be the plaintiff in the first claim of sexual assault. Burney said that the woman had asked him to pay her $30,000 on Watson’s behalf for “indefinite silence” about an encounter with Watson that Burney said she characterized to him as consensual.After Burney declined to pay, the statement said, he received a second call from a man who claimed to be the woman’s business manager. That man claimed something embarrassing would be revealed if Watson did not pay to keep it a secret. Watson, Burney said, did not meet the man’s demand.Hardin added in the statement that Watson’s team was “taking the allegations very seriously and we ask only that people not rush to judgment, that people not be unduly influenced by opposing counsel’s antics, and that they let fundamental fairness to both sides rule the day.” More

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      What to Know About the Lawsuits Against Deshaun Watson

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      Seven women have filed civil lawsuits in Texas accusing the quarterback of a pattern of coercive and lewd behavior.Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson is the subject of seven civil suits filed in mid-March which accuse him of sexual assault. He was not charged criminally. Here’s where the cases stand:Who is Deshaun Watson?Deshaun Watson, 25, is a star quarterback for the Houston Texans, one of the best in the N.F.L. at his position.In September 2020, he signed a four-year contract extension worth nearly $111 million guaranteed, tying him to the Texans through 2025. But Watson, disenchanted by the team’s poor personnel moves and failure to uphold a pledge to include him in the search process for a new coach and general manager, has requested a trade. Watson has a no-trade clause, so he can choose his next destination. But the Texans stressed in January that they have no intention of trading him, creating an impasse for more than two months.In the past year, Watson grew into a leading voice among Black players who have protested against racial injustice and police brutality. During the 2020 off-season, he took part in a player-led video that urged the league to support protests by players, and after police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, Watson marched with his family — Floyd grew up in Houston — in a downtown protest.What is Watson being accused of?Seven women have accused Watson of assaults in civil lawsuits filed in Harris County, Texas. The lawyer representing them, Tony Buzbee, said as many as 15 other women have echoed claims of sexual misconduct and coercive behavior against Watson.Although the seven suits filed to date share many similarities, only one — in which Watson was said to have pressured a woman to perform oral sex during a massage — includes a claim of sexual assault, though all allege that Watson coerced the women to touch him in a sexual manner. All the suits accuse Watson of a pattern of lewd behavior in incidents that occurred from March to December 2020: exposing himself to women he had hired for massages; ordering the women to massage sensitive areas like the groin and inner thigh; and moving his body in ways that forced them to touch his penis.Meredith J. Duncan, who teaches tort law and criminal law at the University of Houston Law Center, defined civil assault as intentionally or knowingly touching someone in a way that a reasonable person would regard as offensive.“It just so happens in this case, the civil assault involves his genitals,” Duncan said. “But forcing another person to perform a sexual act, that’s a more aggravated form of sexual assault.”Watson hasn’t commented publicly since the night of March 16, when the first complaint was filed. He said on Twitter that he had “never treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect” and that he had rejected “a baseless six-figure settlement demand” made by Buzbee before the first suit was filed.Rusty Hardin, who represents Watson, issued a statement on March 19 calling the allegations against his client “meritless.” That same day, Watson’s agent, David Mulugheta, publicly defended his client in social media posts.Will Watson face criminal charges?The Houston Police Department said in a statement March 19 that it was “unaware of any contact between HPD and Houston attorney Tony Buzbee regarding the allegations contained in his recently filed lawsuits and no incident reports regarding these allegations have been filed in our jurisdiction.”Will the N.F.L. take any action?The league opened an investigation into Watson’s conduct on March 18. In a letter addressed to Buzbee, Lisa Friel, a special counsel for investigations at the league, requested the cooperation of the accusers. A league spokesman said the matter was under review in relation to the N.F.L.’s personal conduct policy. That policy governs off-field behavior involving players and coaches.The Texans said in a statement the same day that they would “continue to take this and all matters involving anyone within the Houston Texans organization seriously” and that the team would not comment further until the league’s investigation had ended, a process with no public timeline.Who is Tony Buzbee?Tony Buzbee is a Houston plaintiffs lawyer who has worked on personal injury cases for years but is perhaps most well-known for his involvement in mass tort and class action cases, including the litigation following Hurricane Ike and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a decade ago. He doesn’t appear to have represented many women in cases involving sexual assault.A former marine, Buzbee flaunts his outsize personality and wealth on social media. The first two words on the website for Buzbee’s law firm are “Just Win” and he sports a tattoo of a shark on his right forearm.Although he has said he does not support the Texans, Buzbee, a Texas A&M graduate, in 2014 put up 10 billboards urging the team’s now-deceased owner Bob McNair to draft Johnny Manziel, an Aggies quarterback; McNair didn’t take his advice. Buzbee lives on the same tony Houston street as Texans chairman Cal McNair, but said in a news conference that he does not know McNair. Buzbee also unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Houston in 2019.Who is Rusty Hardin?A former Texas state prosecutor who became a defense lawyer, Rusty Hardin has represented numerous prominent clients, from star athletes to the accounting firm Arthur Andersen in the Enron scandal. He also worked in the independent counsel’s office in the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.Among the athletes he has defended are the pitcher Roger Clemens, against perjury charges in 2012; the N.F.L. running back Adrian Peterson, who was accused of felony child abuse in 2014; and the N.B.A. star James Harden, who was accused in 2017 of paying four people to attack and rob Moses Malone, Jr., the son of the Hall of Fame N.B.A. player. More