In July 2020, just a few days after prominent D.C. attorney Beth Wilkinson began investigating allegations of widespread sexual harassment in the Washington Football Team workplace, she learned of a decade-old allegation of sexual misconduct against team owner Daniel Snyder.
Snyder had for years privately denied the woman’s claims. But the existence of an allegation against him, which had been kept secret by a confidential $1.6 million settlement, had the potential to rock a franchise already reeling from scandal. A few weeks later, Wilkinson sought to interview the former team employee who had made the accusation, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Then Snyder and his team stepped in.
Despite the owner’s public pledge to cooperate “with all aspects of the investigation,” his attorneys attempted to prevent Wilkinson from speaking to Snyder’s accuser, according to a letter the woman’s attorney wrote to Snyder’s lawyers that was filed in federal court.
The Washington Post has not reviewed this letter, which was filed under seal as part of a legal dispute between Wilkinson and a former lawyer for the team. The letter was described by people with knowledge of its contents.
According to these people, the woman’s lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, accused Snyder’s lawyers of offering his client more money beyond the $1.6 million the team paid in 2009, if she agreed not to speak to anyone about her allegations against Snyder and her settlement with the team. In court filings, Wilkinson later described phone calls to Sullivan from Snyder’s lawyers as an attempt to “silence” the 2009 accuser. Wilkinson and Sullivan declined to comment.
Snyder’s attorneys, in their own sealed letter filed in court, denied trying to block the interview and offering the woman more money, according to people familiar with that letter.
Snyder declined an interview request. Lawyers representing Snyder and the team declined interview requests and refused to comment on the record in response to an email outlining the contents of this story.
Daniel Snyder pushed back as the NFL probed. Here are takeaways from The Post’s reporting.
The alleged effort to block the interview is one of several instances in which lawyers and private investigators working on Snyder’s behalf took steps that potential witnesses for Wilkinson viewed as attempts to interfere with the NFL’s investigation, according to a review of hundreds of pages of court records and interviews with more than 30 people, including current and former team and league officials.
While Snyder publicly expressed shock over allegations raised in The Post story that prompted Wilkinson’s investigation, his lawyers filed petitions in federal court seeking, in part, to identify former employees who had spoken to The Post — an effort one federal judge suggested was intended “to burden and harass” former employees who had spoken to reporters.
Private investigators working on Snyder’s behalf, meanwhile, showed up uninvited at the homes of several former employees or contacted their friends and relatives, according to these former employees or their attorneys — acts many of them viewed as intimidation aimed at discouraging former employees from participating in the NFL’s investigation.
And after Snyder’s lawyers learned that the 2009 accuser still intended to speak to Wilkinson — despite what her attorney alleged was an effort to prevent her from speaking to the NFL’s investigator — they provided support for a lawsuit filed against Wilkinson by the team’s retired former general counsel, court records show. That lawsuit sought to bar Wilkinson from discussing the 2009 allegation against Snyder with NFL officials, and to force her to destroy documents relating to the woman’s allegations.
Wilkinson ultimately did interview Snyder’s accuser, according to court records. But the revelation that Snyder was accused of trying to block a witness from participating in the NFL’s investigation raises new concerns about Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision to keep confidential any report or investigative findings produced by Wilkinson — a departure from how the league has handled investigations in recent years.
More than a dozen women allege sexual harassment and verbal abuse by former team employees at Redskins Park
Previous NFL probes — into the Ray Rice domestic violence case and the “Deflategate” controversy — resulted in detailed, public reports. A league-sponsored investigation of Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, which substantiated allegations that he had harassed women on the team’s staff and used a racial slur, resulted in the release of executive findings.
Goodell’s secretive handling of the Washington investigation, which has spared Snyder from any public punishment, has drawn recent interest from members of Congress, thanks to a series of leaked emails that prompted the resignation of Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden and tarnished the reputations of others. The leaks of certain emails produced as part of Wilkinson’s investigation — months after the probe ended — has fueled speculation over their source, with the NFL and Snyder denying any role.
But among former team employees, it has not escaped notice that the emails spared Snyder any embarrassment while damaging the reputation of one of his perceived enemies: Bruce Allen, the longtime team president Snyder fired in 2019.
Allen declined to comment. The NFL also declined to comment or to answer any questions about the investigation and its handling of the emails that were leaked.
As all of this plays out, Snyder — once faced with a crisis that some speculated could cost him team ownership — appears to have emerged with an even stronger hold on the team. But victory for Snyder came at a cost for the NFL’s image, at least in the eyes of many of the women who came forward to participate in its investigation.
“It’s very sad and disheartening that [the NFL is] not willing to do the right thing,” said Rachel Engleson, a former team marketing director.
Engleson agreed to speak to Wilkinson’s team, she said, because she believed the NFL would handle the investigation as transparently as previous league probes. Instead, she came away with a different perception of the league’s handling of investigations — when the allegations involve an owner.
“Here’s this billionaire owner,” she said of Snyder, “who can do anything he wants.”
Snyder had for years privately denied the woman’s claims. But the existence of an allegation against him, which had been kept secret by a confidential $1.6 million settlement, had the potential to rock a franchise already reeling from scandal. A few weeks later, Wilkinson sought to interview the former team employee who had made the accusation, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Then Snyder and his team stepped in.
Despite the owner’s public pledge to cooperate “with all aspects of the investigation,” his attorneys attempted to prevent Wilkinson from speaking to Snyder’s accuser, according to a letter the woman’s attorney wrote to Snyder’s lawyers that was filed in federal court.
The Washington Post has not reviewed this letter, which was filed under seal as part of a legal dispute between Wilkinson and a former lawyer for the team. The letter was described by people with knowledge of its contents.
According to these people, the woman’s lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, accused Snyder’s lawyers of offering his client more money beyond the $1.6 million the team paid in 2009, if she agreed not to speak to anyone about her allegations against Snyder and her settlement with the team. In court filings, Wilkinson later described phone calls to Sullivan from Snyder’s lawyers as an attempt to “silence” the 2009 accuser. Wilkinson and Sullivan declined to comment.
Snyder’s attorneys, in their own sealed letter filed in court, denied trying to block the interview and offering the woman more money, according to people familiar with that letter.
Snyder declined an interview request. Lawyers representing Snyder and the team declined interview requests and refused to comment on the record in response to an email outlining the contents of this story.
Daniel Snyder pushed back as the NFL probed. Here are takeaways from The Post’s reporting.
The alleged effort to block the interview is one of several instances in which lawyers and private investigators working on Snyder’s behalf took steps that potential witnesses for Wilkinson viewed as attempts to interfere with the NFL’s investigation, according to a review of hundreds of pages of court records and interviews with more than 30 people, including current and former team and league officials.
While Snyder publicly expressed shock over allegations raised in The Post story that prompted Wilkinson’s investigation, his lawyers filed petitions in federal court seeking, in part, to identify former employees who had spoken to The Post — an effort one federal judge suggested was intended “to burden and harass” former employees who had spoken to reporters.
Private investigators working on Snyder’s behalf, meanwhile, showed up uninvited at the homes of several former employees or contacted their friends and relatives, according to these former employees or their attorneys — acts many of them viewed as intimidation aimed at discouraging former employees from participating in the NFL’s investigation.
And after Snyder’s lawyers learned that the 2009 accuser still intended to speak to Wilkinson — despite what her attorney alleged was an effort to prevent her from speaking to the NFL’s investigator — they provided support for a lawsuit filed against Wilkinson by the team’s retired former general counsel, court records show. That lawsuit sought to bar Wilkinson from discussing the 2009 allegation against Snyder with NFL officials, and to force her to destroy documents relating to the woman’s allegations.
Wilkinson ultimately did interview Snyder’s accuser, according to court records. But the revelation that Snyder was accused of trying to block a witness from participating in the NFL’s investigation raises new concerns about Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision to keep confidential any report or investigative findings produced by Wilkinson — a departure from how the league has handled investigations in recent years.
More than a dozen women allege sexual harassment and verbal abuse by former team employees at Redskins Park
Previous NFL probes — into the Ray Rice domestic violence case and the “Deflategate” controversy — resulted in detailed, public reports. A league-sponsored investigation of Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, which substantiated allegations that he had harassed women on the team’s staff and used a racial slur, resulted in the release of executive findings.
Goodell’s secretive handling of the Washington investigation, which has spared Snyder from any public punishment, has drawn recent interest from members of Congress, thanks to a series of leaked emails that prompted the resignation of Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden and tarnished the reputations of others. The leaks of certain emails produced as part of Wilkinson’s investigation — months after the probe ended — has fueled speculation over their source, with the NFL and Snyder denying any role.
But among former team employees, it has not escaped notice that the emails spared Snyder any embarrassment while damaging the reputation of one of his perceived enemies: Bruce Allen, the longtime team president Snyder fired in 2019.
Allen declined to comment. The NFL also declined to comment or to answer any questions about the investigation and its handling of the emails that were leaked.
As all of this plays out, Snyder — once faced with a crisis that some speculated could cost him team ownership — appears to have emerged with an even stronger hold on the team. But victory for Snyder came at a cost for the NFL’s image, at least in the eyes of many of the women who came forward to participate in its investigation.
“It’s very sad and disheartening that [the NFL is] not willing to do the right thing,” said Rachel Engleson, a former team marketing director.
Engleson agreed to speak to Wilkinson’s team, she said, because she believed the NFL would handle the investigation as transparently as previous league probes. Instead, she came away with a different perception of the league’s handling of investigations — when the allegations involve an owner.
“Here’s this billionaire owner,” she said of Snyder, “who can do anything he wants.”
