3 Interesting Legal Troubles going on in the world of sports right now. I was listening to the Junkies this morning (106.7 the Fan -Washington DC) who had on ESPN lawyer on this morning (whose name escapes me) to discuss the
Roethlisberger case, Michael Vick, and Erin Andrews.
Ben Roethlisberger:Big Ben is being sued by a women for I believe $400K in damages for an
alleged sex crime. The woman has not filed a criminal case with the police, but rather just a civil case against Ben
Roethlisberger. The story goes that Ben had called down to the front desk while staying in a Lake Tahoe hotel to complain his TV didn't work, and when she arrived is when the sexual crime happened. Apparently though this happened a year ago, she did not come forward because she believed everyone would side with the NFL star.
She said the security chief, Guy
Hyder, told her she was "over reacting," that "most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben
Roethlisberger."
ESPN Lawyers take: The reason she may not be pursuing a criminal charge is because she doesn't want this thing to prolong and shake out a la the Kobe Bryan Case a few years back. Essentially he said that if they can't pull any medical reports of her visiting the hospital and showing signs of forced sex or rape, she had no case. He did say he did a background check on her lawyers and they were solid, though they never have tackled on anyone famous.
Millman prediction...claim is dropped.
Michael Vick:As we all know Michael Vick has been out of jail for sometime now and is finally off of house arrest. How does he celebrate? Reports are that he was at a strip club in Virginia with Allen
Iverson just the other night. Not that going to a strip club is illegal, but generally I think we know bad things tend to happen. Don't you think Vick could be smart enough to realize, hey, I am meeting with
Commissioner Goodell in 3 or 4 days, maybe I should just lay low for a couple more days. The ESPN lawyer was fairly
adamant that Vick had served his time and should be allowed to be employed by the National Football League. He mentioned that he was not the slightest bit impressed by the 8-9 lawyers Vick had, and thought they could have done plenty more to lessen the severity of the sentence that Vick served. He was hoping that Vick would be smart
enough to talk to Rodger G. one on one instead of his team of lawyers to hopefully prove to him that he was truly sorry and ready to move on, and that his meeting wasn't just a scripted act.
Millman prediction: not really sure.
Goodell has really been strict with players and suspensions. This is kind of a "landmark"" decision in his tenure, as I don't believe anyone under his watch has come back to the league after sitting over a year because of jail time. I for one think Vick should be reinstated and that an additional
suspension is additional punishment. Ultimately I think
Goodell will rule the same, but am not confident.
Erin Andrews:EA is seeking legal action against whoever had decided to take videos of her through a peephole. The ESPN lawyer mentioned that this happened in several locations so police have generally stayed out of this search because it falls in multiple jurisdictions. ESPN is in full support of EA and the lawyer today said that they think it could be an inside job because Erin Andrews is always busy and all over the United States that it would take someone to know her schedule to be able to pull this off. Another
interesting twist to the story is that ESPN has banned the NY Post from appearing on its programming (for
at least a day) for putting a still shot in its paper of Andrews.
Millman prediction: Not sure where this case goes. Might be hard to find out who did this, but I am sure ESPN will spend quite a lot of resources to get to the bottom of this. Still to early in its development to know for sure.
