Washington football team owner Dan Snyder accused a disgruntled former worker of taking cash and helping to execute a crusade to spread harmful data that opposes him, according to a document filed Monday in the Federal District Court.
The employee, Mary-Ellen Blair, worked for the team from 2013 to 2017 as an assistant in the main office.
“We are aggressively suing Mary-Ellen Blair, a disgruntled former worker who is obviously in the pocket of another and is complicit in this plan to defame Mr. Snyder, that the full weight of the law weighs heavily on all those culprits of those heinous acts,” one of Snyder’s lawyers, Joe Tacopina, said in a statement.
On Monday, Snyder asked for documents that would help him in a defamation case opposed to an Indian media company known as Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide, which he had filed three days earlier. MEAWW published articles on its online page in July that spread negative rumors about Snyder about what would be included about him in an upcoming Washington Post article. The Post article points to major allegations of sexual harassment of 15 former Washington football team workers. The story doesn’t say Snyder was explicitly concerned more than as a team owner.
The articles on the MEAWW website have since been taken down. Snyder has accused the company of accepting money to publish these articles and expressed his desire for the identity of the person who paid for them.
Nirnay Chowdhary, founder of M.E.A. WorldWide said mistakes had been made in publishing the articles, but denied that they accepted cash in exchange for publication, according to the New York Times.
This isn’t the first time Snyder has been suing a media company. Snyder filed a lawsuit against the Washington City newspaper in 2010 after publishing an article he called “an encyclopedia of the owner’s many failures.” The trial finally fell.
FedEx, the team’s stadium manager, threatened to withdraw his money if the nickname “Redskins”, the 87-year-old team’s nickname, was not replaced. After expressing for years that it would never replace the Redskins call and logo, which have long been considered a racial slur, were officially eliminated last month. Prior to the replacement call, the team also got rid of the statue of former owner George Preston Marshall, the last NFL owner to sign up for his team, from the outdoor RFK Stadium.
Snyder is now seeking $10 million in damages from the media company. In order to help his case, Snyder has targeted Blair, who was fired from the team after being demoted and left the organization on bad terms, according to the filing. The filing also said that Blair reached out to current and past team employees in the late spring for disparaging information on Snyder.
The file indicates that Blair earned money from the same other people who “hired and directed” MEAWW to publish negative articles about Snyder.
“Mr. Snyder will not stand by idly as these criminals, for their own malicious reasons, seek to sully his good name through outrageous lies, Tacopina said. “To that end, we are aggressively pursuing Mary Ellen Blair, a disgruntled former employee who is clearly in the pocket of another and complicit in this scheme to defame Mr. Snyder, in order to ensure that the full weight of the law comes down heavily on all those responsible for these heinous acts.”
Blair’s attorney, Lisa Banks said the following to ESPN.
“Today’s legal filing through Dan Snyder requesting documents from former worker Mary Ellen Blair is full of many lies, which apparently aim to humiliate and intimidate her. It is vital to note that Ms Blair never disclosed or provided data to MEA WorldWide’s online page or connected to Mr. Snyder’s trial in India. The presentation is an apparent, senseless attempt to silence Ms. Blair and others who may wish to talk to the valid media about the culture of sexism, harassment and abuse that has existed at the top of the Washington football team for decades. The unfounded intimidation and denigration of former workers who provide truthful facts about his revelry with Dan Snyder and his organization will do nothing to fix the reputation he claims in this matter of caring so much deeply. “
The filing further states that Blair told a Washington employee that the Post story would “not be good for Dan,” suggesting that it would expose him using drugs. The filing alleges that Blair told a longtime employee of Snyder’s that the team’s minority shareholders no longer wanted to be involved with the team.
Snyder states on the record that Blair has a “financial benefactor” who is helping him with the rent. Lives in a construction site owned by Comstock. One of the team’s minority owners, Dwight Schar’s daughter Tracy, is a board member of Comstock and serves as senior vice president of marketing at Comstock Holding Companies.
The Times also reports that Comstock’s board of directors includes two other people who worked for Red Zone Capital, which is co-owned through Snyder and Schar.
I’ve been covering the EAST NFC ever since I was a student at the College of the Holy Cross, where I signed up for the New York Giants. I graduated from Northwestern’s Medill
I’ve been covering the EAST NFC ever since I was a student at the College of the Holy Cross, where I signed up for the New York Giants. I graduated from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, where I majored in sports media.