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      Former Penn State President Will Serve 2 Months in Jail in Child Abuse Scandal

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      Graham B. Spanier, who was found guilty in 2017 of one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child, must report to prison on July 9.Graham B. Spanier, the former president of Pennsylvania State University, must serve two months in jail followed by two months of house arrest for his role in a child abuse scandal that rocked the university a decade ago, a judge reaffirmed on Wednesday, according to prosecutors.The judge, John A. Boccabella, upheld the sentence he issued four years ago after Mr. Spanier, 72, was found guilty of one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child.Prosecutors said Mr. Spanier had failed to report child abuse allegations to law enforcement officials when he learned that Jerry Sandusky, an assistant coach of the vaunted Nittany Lions football team, had been seen abusing a boy in a locker room shower on campus.Mr. Spanier must report to the Centre County Correctional Facility in Bellefonte, Pa., to begin serving the sentence on July 9, prosecutors said.“He made a mistake and he’s going to pay for his mistake, but I don’t consider him to be a danger to society as I would a criminal,” Judge Boccabella said in the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas, according to The Associated Press.Mr. Spanier had remained free as he sought relief after the conviction, which had been overturned by a federal judge in 2019 before it was reinstated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in December.Mr. Sandusky was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing 10 young boys and was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison. In 2013, Penn State agreed to pay $59.7 million to 26 sexual abuse victims in exchange for an end to their claims against the university.The abuse shocked the university and badly tarnished the reputation of its celebrated head coach, Joe Paterno, who was among those suspected of turning a blind eye to Mr. Sandusky’s conduct. Mr. Paterno was dismissed and died in 2012.Mr. Spanier had served as president of Penn State for 16 years before he was forced out in 2011. His case drew attention not only because of his stature as a university president but also because he had spoken publicly about his own history of being abused as a child by his father, who beat him severely.“The single most important thing I can say is that I’m sorry,” he told the court when he was sentenced in 2017. “I deeply regret that I did not intervene far more carefully.”On Wednesday, Judge Boccabella upheld the original sentence of four to 12 months of incarceration that he had issued in 2017, prosecutors said. In addition to the two months in jail and two months of house arrest, Mr. Spanier will also have to serve two years of probation and complete 200 hours of community service, prosecutors said.“Today marks the end of a long road towards justice for the children endangered by Mr. Spanier’s inaction — choosing to cover up the abuse at the hands of Jerry Sandusky rather than reporting it to law enforcement,” Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Josh Shapiro, said in a statement. “There are consequences for failing to protect children in Pennsylvania.”Mr. Spanier’s lawyer, Samuel W. Silver, had asked that his client be allowed to serve his sentence at home.Mr. Silver said that Mr. Spanier underwent open-heart surgery in September 2019 and had an advanced stage of prostate cancer, putting him at risk from the coronavirus, The A.P. reported. Mr. Spanier is fully vaccinated, Mr. Silver said.“Fortunately, things are not as dire as they were a year ago,” Judge Boccabella said, according to The A.P.In an email on Wednesday, Mr. Silver said that he had argued in court that “in light of the circumstances, the attorney general’s insistence that Dr. Spanier should now be confined in a correctional facility is remarkable.” More

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      Antonio Brown Settles Suit With Sexual Assault Accuser

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      A statement released by lawyers for Brown and his accuser said, “Having reflected on their relationship, both feel that the time has come to move on.”Antonio Brown, one of the N.F.L.’s most prominent wide receivers, said through a representative on Wednesday that he had settled a lawsuit brought by his former trainer who had accused him of rape and sexual assault. The statement from Brown’s representative was also released by the accuser’s legal team.The resolution appeared to have ended the bitter and often public dispute between Brown and Britney Taylor, who filed a civil claim in September 2019 that accused the N.F.L. star of sexually assaulting her twice in June 2017 and raping her in May 2018. Taylor publicly identified herself as Brown’s accuser in a statement issued when the lawsuit was filed.She said that she had met Brown when they were students at Central Michigan and that they had stayed in contact after Brown reached the N.F.L., as a sixth-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2010. Brown had hired Taylor as a personal trainer and, according to the statement on Wednesday, they were business partners for a time.Brown has repeatedly denied the allegations, which the statement did not address.The settlement announced on Wednesday brought an abrupt end to a dispute that led to dueling lawsuits and caustic comments between Brown and Taylor.“Having reflected on their relationship, both feel that the time has come to move on,” Alana Burstyn, Brown’s spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Antonio is grateful for Britney’s excellent training assistance. They are pleased that Antonio is doing so well with the Bucs and has a ring. Their dispute is resolved and they wish each other great continued success.”Asked what prompted the settlement, Burstyn said that Brown and Taylor “got tired of fighting.”Burstyn and Taylor’s lawyer, David Haas, did not provide financial details of the settlement.The N.F.L.’s investigation into the case is continuing, a spokesman said.Brown, 32, was also accused of sexual misconduct by another woman in a Sports Illustrated report published a week after Taylor’s case became public. Brown also denied that accusation.The accusations surfaced soon after Brown joined the New England Patriots. The team released him on Sept. 20, 2019, after he sent threatening texts to his accuser in the second case. He sat out the remainder of the 2019 season, and during that hiatus was charged with burglary and battery in a January 2020 dispute with a moving company employee. Brown pleaded no contest in that case and received two years’ probation.When Taylor filed her case against Brown, he countersued, claiming she had defamed him and interfered with his N.F.L. contracts and endorsements.As his legal troubles piled up and he made increasingly strident pronouncements on social media, Brown went from a highly coveted receiver to an outcast on the verge of being bounced from the N.F.L. His future on the football field was clouded further when the league, as it continued to investigate Taylor’s claims, suspended him for the first half of the 2020 season because of the threatening texts and his role in the dispute with the moving company employee.The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed Brown last October, with Taylor’s lawsuit and the N.F.L.’s investigation still pending. Before his first game for the Buccaneers, Brown said he was grateful for another chance to get back on the field and thanked the team’s quarterback, Tom Brady, who let Brown stay in his Tampa-area mansion. Brown said he hoped to prove himself to his new team and “win them over in my actions, how I move forward and how I handle my business.”Brown played in 11 games at the end of the 2020 N.F.L. season and during the playoffs, helping the Buccaneers win the Super Bowl in February.Even before Taylor’s suit was filed, Brown had earned a reputation in the N.F.L. as a fiery personality. He scuffled with teammates and was fined for touchdown celebrations during his nine seasons with the Steelers, and then had short stints with the Oakland Raiders and the Patriots in 2019.As a Raider, he fought with the team’s general manager, argued over which helmet he could use and sat out most of the 2019 training camp because of a severe case of frostbite on his feet that developed when he used a cryotherapy chamber. He criticized the Raiders and the Patriots after he was released and threatened to retire on Instagram, continuing to do so in elaborately produced videos even as he publicly disputed Taylor’s allegations. Brown’s tempestuousness ultimately prompted his longtime agent, Drew Rosenhaus, to walk away from a client who earned $77.5 million during his career.Brown earned $1.67 million on a one-year contract last season, as well as a playoff bonus. He has not re-signed with the Buccaneers and is an unrestricted free agent.Buccaneers General Manager Jason Licht said Wednesday that he has been negotiating to re-sign Brown for the 2021 season and that the status of the Taylor lawsuit had not affected the talks.“So, to have this resolved, it certainly helps,” Licht said. “But it wasn’t, you know, that isn’t necessarily the deciding factor of whether or not we’re going to continue to talk.” More

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      Deshaun Watson Calls Civil Suits ‘Simply Not True’ in Legal Filing

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      Lawyers for the Houston Texans quarterback on Monday rebutted the assault allegations filed against him by 22 women.Deshaun Watson, the star Houston Texans quarterback, on Monday officially rebutted the accusations of the 22 women who claim he engaged in sexual misconduct against them during massage therapy sessions, accusing those women in a civil court filing of fabricating their stories for money.According to the filing, which addresses all 22 claims against Watson, “These lawsuits are replete with mischaracterizations of Mr. Watson’s conduct. These range from being misleading, to fraudulent, to slanderous.”Watson received the names of all his accusers only last week, after the suits were filed against him anonymously beginning in mid-March. Two of his accusers voluntarily identified themselves in April and judges that month ruled that the women bringing suits against Watson must identify themselves, according to state law.Since then, Watson and his lawyers have scrambled to investigate the accusers and their claims, and said in the court filing that they discovered evidence that “numerous allegations in this onslaught of cases are simply not true or accurate.” In rebutting some allegations, the filing said that eight of the women who have brought suit bragged about massaging Watson and seven “willingly worked or offered to work” with Watson after the alleged misconduct was said to have occurred, including one woman who showed up at his house to give him another massage even before he had booked an appointment with her.The filing also claimed that some plaintiffs told others that they wanted to “get money out of” Watson, that some of the accusers lied about being traumatized by the conduct Watson’s accused of and that some scrubbed or deleted their social media accounts, disposing of evidence Watson would need to mount a proper defense.“I truly believe that this is a cash grab against a wealthy athlete,” Rusty Hardin, Watson’s lead lawyer, said Monday in a telephone interview. “If you’re asking, ‘Are you saying that all 22 are lying about whether he committed sexual misconduct?’ I sure am.”Hardin said in an April 9 news conference that there were “some consensual encounters,” between Watson and his accusers.Tony Buzbee, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Monday in a statement that Watson’s response to the accusations did nothing to help his cause. He called Watson’s “weak and vague” allegations against his accusers in Monday’s court filing “demonstrably false.”“As fully anticipated and despite his lawyer’s previous statements, Deshaun Watson’s only defense is to call these brave women liars,” Buzbee said.Monday’s court filing is just one step in a long legal process that could take months, if not more than a year, to conclude. The lawsuits have accused Watson, 25, of engaging in a pattern of lewd behavior with women he hired via social media platforms to give him massages this year and last. The claims accuse him of exposing himself during massages, moving his body in a way to make his female massage therapists touch his penis, or coercing the women to touch him in a sexual manner. In two of the cases, women say he forced them to perform oral sex.At least one other massage therapist who had not brought suit against Watson publicly accused him of similar behavior, though she did not hire Buzbee to represent her. She told Sports Illustrated in late March that she was considering legal action.The court document filed Monday said one of the two plaintiffs who accused Watson of forced sexual acts “sought to blackmail” Watson before suing him.“She asked him to pay her $30,000 for ‘indefinite silence’ because her encounter would be ‘embarrassing’ if revealed,” the court filing said of one accuser.That plaintiff also asked Watson’s marketing manager for a copy of the nondisclosure agreement that she and Watson had signed “because she did not want people in her industry to know she had provided oral sex to her massage client,” the filing said, adding that Watson has a recording of a phone call of a conversation in which she discusses her concerns.Hardin, in Monday’s court document, requested a jury trial. He later explained that a trial might be the only way the public can weigh all the evidence and rightly decide what happened between Watson and the women he hired to massage him.“I’m totally comfortable that if there is a jury trial one day, a jury will find every one of these accusations false,” Hardin said. “But if we have to resort to the court, it’s a long way away.” More

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      Two of Deshaun Watson’s Accusers Take Their Claims Public

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      Over 20 women have filed civil assault lawsuits against the quarterback anonymously, but Tuesday two of the complainants gave emotional statements describing sexual abuse.Ashley Solis became a massage therapist to heal people’s minds and bodies, but after what she said happened to her in March 2020, she can no longer do what she loves without shaking. Her hands tremble when she places them on clients, forcing her to cut sessions short. She suffers from panic attacks, anxiety and depression.Until Tuesday, Solis had been known as Jane Doe, the first of 22 women who have accused the Houston Texans’ star quarterback Deshaun Watson of assault and sexual misconduct in civil lawsuits. She became the first of the women to identify herself, stifling back tears as she accused Watson of behavior during a session on March 30, 2020 — moving his body to expose his penis, then touching her hand with it — that mortified and embarrassed her, sending her into a “tailspin” from which she said she has yet to recover.“I was afraid,” said Solis, who took several long pauses to compose herself as she read from a statement at a news conference Tuesday at the office of her lawyer, Tony Buzbee, who is representing all 22 women. “I’m not afraid anymore. I’m here to take back the power and take back control. I’m a survivor of assault and harassment. Deshaun Watson is my assaulter and my harasser.”She added, “People say that I’m doing this just for money. That is false. I come forward so that Deshaun Watson does not assault another woman.”Watson has not commented publicly since the night of March 16, when the first lawsuit was filed. He said in a post 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.Another of the 22 women who have filed lawsuits, Lauren Baxley, also came forward Tuesday but did not attend the news conference held at Buzbee’s office in downtown Houston. She instead provided a letter she addressed to Watson that was read by one of Buzbee’s associates. Baxley echoed, in graphic terms, the pattern of lewd and coercive conduct he has been accused of and condemned him for being “nothing more than a predator with power.”“Every boundary from professional and therapeutic to sexual and degrading, you crossed or attempted to cross,” Baxley said.In her letter, which she said she wrote at the suggestion of her trauma therapist, Baxley said she was motivated not only to forgive herself for not speaking up sooner or for not being braver, but so that “you can know without excuse or justification that you have deeply and irreversibly brought terror to me and others.”Taken together, the two statements provided the most emotional declarations yet in the case against one of the N.F.L.’s best and most prominent players, who had become a fixture in the Houston community since he joined the Texans in 2017. By attaching faces and names to the flurry of civil court filings, the women appeared to counter some of the arguments made by Watson’s defense lawyers, who have pushed back against the legitimacy of the allegations made against Watson because they had been done so anonymously.After Tuesday’s news conference, Rusty Hardin, a lawyer representing Watson, took aim at the claims by Buzbee and Solis. Hardin released a series of emails that suggested that Buzbee “sought $100,000 in hush money on behalf of Ms. Solis to quietly settle the allegations the month before he filed the first lawsuit.” All of the accusers, according to the lawsuits, have filed claims seeking “minimal compensatory damages.”In one email from February, Scott Gaffield, general counsel at Athletes First, the agency that represents Watson, rebuffed Buzbee’s demand on behalf of Solis for $100,000 because “we don’t believe that the alleged facts show that Deshaun did anything wrong …”In addition to the 22 civil claims, the case against Watson widened last week when the Houston Police Department acknowledged that it had begun investigating Watson after a complaint was filed against him. Buzbee said Tuesday that at least one other person had also filed a complaint against Watson with the police. It is unclear whether either person is also a plaintiff in the lawsuits filed against Watson in Harris County, Texas.While nearly two dozen claims have been filed against Watson in less than one month, the legal machinations are only beginning. The cases are now assigned to several judges for review, but it is unclear when or if they will be consolidated, something that would streamline decisions on the anonymity of the accusers, any motions to dismiss, potential discovery and myriad other steps that might lead to trial.Other factors may shape the contours of the case, including any potential developments in the investigations by the police and the N.F.L., which began its own inquiry and can suspend Watson while it looks into the allegations against him. Though the accusations have mounted in a short span of time, the legal proceedings are in very early stages, according to Stephanie Stradley, a lawyer in Houston who writes frequently about legal matters concerning the Texans and the N.F.L.“If you were making a football analogy, the ball’s been kicked off and people are running down the field, but no one’s caught the ball yet,” she said. “These cases are hard enough as it is when the world isn’t watching. They can be kind of messy sorting out what the full facts are.” 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

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      Tony Buzbee, Lawyer for Deshaun Watson's Accusers, Addresses Skeptics

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      “This case is about female empowerment, taking the power back,” said Tony Buzbee, who represents seven women in lawsuits accusing the Texans quarterback of sexual assault.Tony Buzbee, the lawyer representing the seven women who have accused the Houston Texans star quarterback Deshaun Watson of sexual assault in civil lawsuits, on Friday spoke publicly for the first time since the allegations emerged this week. Buzbee forcefully challenged skepticism about the claims of assault, which he said had been echoed by as many as 15 other women, and about the timing of the lawsuits filed so far.The claims have surfaced against the backdrop of Watson’s request to be traded from the Texans — whose executives have so far refused to honor his wishes — and could dampen other teams’ interest in a player regarded as one of the best in the N.F.L. at his position. The accusations have also been broadcast by an audacious personal injury attorney who has little or no history with such cases and who has used Instagram and Facebook to solicit potential clients.All of the complaints, filed in Harris County, Texas, accuse Watson of a pattern of lewd behavior: exposing himself to women he had hired for massages; dictating that they work on sensitive areas like the groin and inner thigh; and moving his body in ways that caused his penis to touch them.“The case ain’t about money, and it’s certainly not about seeking publicity or fame,” Buzbee said at a news conference at his firm’s office in downtown Houston. “I personally don’t need it, and these women don’t want it. This case is about female empowerment, taking the power back.”The accusations, which first surfaced on Tuesday night, have engaged two of Houston’s better-known lawyers in a legal fracas that centers on one of the city’s most beloved athletes. The N.F.L. is investigating the accusations against Watson, and Buzbee said he would hand over files to the Houston Police Department for potential criminal investigations.The Houston Police Department said in a statement Friday 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.”After Buzbee’s news conference, Rusty Hardin, who represents Watson, issued a statement calling the allegations against his client “meritless,” but declined to comment in detail until next week, when “we’ve completed our review of the numerous, evolving allegations from Mr. Buzbee.”Watson, 25, hasn’t commented publicly about the allegations since he posted to Twitter on Tuesday night that he had “never treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect.”Deshaun Watson hasn’t commented publicly about the allegations since he posted to Twitter on Tuesday night that he had “never treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect.”Darron Cummings/Associated PressOne accuser said in her complaint that Watson had tried kissing her on the mouth, while another said he ejaculated during a massage. According to another complaint, Watson, after contacting the woman through an Instagram direct message, spoke with her on the phone before his appointment and said, “I make a lot of massage therapists uncomfortable and it’s really hard for me to find someone who will meet my needs.”The incidents, according to the lawsuits, occurred from March to December last year. Buzbee first alluded to the allegations against Watson on Instagram on Tuesday night. The post was accompanied by a photo of a smiling Watson.A former Marine, Buzbee lives an outsize life. He has an office on the 73rd floor of the tallest building in Houston and drives a Ferrari. He also ran for mayor in 2019.He has worked on personal injury cases for years, but is perhaps best 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 does not appear to have represented many women in sexual assault and harassment cases.Buzbee’s reputation for bluster and, depending on one’s view, grandstanding, is not new. In the 1990s, when he was a law student at the University of Houston, he sat in the second row in a class taught by John Mixon, then a professor there.Mixon called Buzbee one of the most confident students he had encountered in his decades of teaching. Buzbee had a knowing smile, and when he spoke, he did so with authority.“No professor would have tried to intimidate him,” Mixon said.The Texas legal community is known for showy lawyers, including many who come from humble backgrounds and have a street-fighting bravado that defines their approach to the profession. “The bookworm lawyer should probably go to Wall Street or corporate practice,” Mixon said. “These guys will eat them alive.”Indeed, the first two words on the website for Buzbee’s law firm are “Just Win.” A photo on his Facebook page includes a silver sculpture in the shape of a shark. On Friday, Buzbee flaunted his fearlessness, saying that he once sued the sheikh of Abu Dhabi and that he had received at least 10 death threats in this case.He then invited anyone who might have been assaulted or harassed by Watson to contact his office.Hardin has represented his share of high-profile athletes, including defending the pitcher Roger Clemens against perjury charges in 2012 and representing the N.F.L. running back Adrian Peterson, who was accused of felony child abuse in 2014.Watson’s agent, David Mulugheta, publicly defended his client in social media posts Friday.“Sexual assault is real. Victims should be heard, offenders prosecuted,” Mulugheta wrote on Twitter. “Individuals fabricate stories in pursuit of financial gain often. Their victims should be heard, and those offenders also prosecuted. I simply hope we keep this same energy with the truth.”Mulugheta’s post was criticized on social media for its characterization of the frequency of false claims, which studies have found to be rare, at a rate from 2 to 10 percent of all reports of sexual assault.Still, Buzbee’s very public approach to soliciting clients has raised questions about his strategy. He acknowledged that “when you make these allegations, the first thing that happens is people say it’s a money grab.” Like it or not, he added, “people blindly follow sports and are loath to believe victims.”Kim Gandy, the past president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, said Buzbee’s efforts to raise the profile of his cases and to invite more victims to step forward may be intended to bolster each woman’s claim.“Just from history, it’s very clear that athletes, especially beloved local athletes, get the benefit of the doubt unless the evidence is overwhelming,” Gandy said. “Sad to say, you need multiple cases to prove one.” More

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      N.F.L. Opens Investigation Into Accusations Against Deshaun Watson

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      Three women have filed lawsuits against the Houston Texans quarterback, accusing him of sexual assault.The N.F.L. on Thursday began investigating the conduct of the Houston Texans star quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has been accused in civil lawsuits of sexually assaulting three female massage therapists. The lawsuits were filed this week in Harris County, Texas.In a letter addressed to Tony Buzbee, the Houston plaintiffs’ lawyer representing all three women, Lisa Friel, a special counsel for investigations at the league, requested the cooperation of the accusers. Buzbee posted the letter to Instagram. 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 Thursday 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. The N.F.L. often takes months to complete its investigations, which include interviews with accusers and N.F.L. employees, as well as law enforcement officials.Earlier on Thursday, Buzbee said on Instagram that a total of nine women had come forward with accusations against Watson, who has not spoken publicly about the allegations since he posted a statement to Twitter on Tuesday night, after the first complaint against him had been filed. Watson said 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.The third complaint, filed Wednesday night, echoed descriptions of behavior detailed in the two other suits filed against Watson. It said that Watson, 25, had pressured the woman to perform oral sex during a massage on Dec. 28 at an office building in Houston.Watson, who contacted the woman through a direct message on Instagram, started to aggressively dictate how she should massage him, the complaint said, and told her to work on his hamstrings, inner thighs and “inner glutes.” Watson then instructed her to move her hand across his genitals, the complaint said, and pushed her mouth toward his penis. According to the complaint, the woman was so shaken that she blacked out for a few minutes. Watson got dressed and left without apologizing, the complaint said.Watson has hired Rusty Hardin, a prominent defense lawyer also based in Houston. Hardin has defended other well-known athletes in the area, including Roger Clemens and James Harden. In a phone interview, Hardin declined to discuss the case and said only that he was still learning the details.After the league finishes its investigation, Watson could be fined or suspended if he is found to have violated the league’s personal conduct policy. He could appeal any penalties.In 2014, the league began hiring its own professional investigators, including Friel, a former prosecutor in New York City, to review allegations of bad behavior off the field, particularly related to sexual assault and domestic violence. Before then, the league typically relied on law enforcement agencies and resolutions in the courts to decide whether to penalize anyone.Ken Belson contributed reporting. More