(Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
By Sam Britt
The Washington Football Team paid a female former employee $1.6 million in 2009 as a confidential settlement after she accused team owner Dan Snyder of sexual misconduct, according to The Washington Post.
The incident occurred on Snyder’s private plane on a return flight after the Academy of Country Music Awards. Snyder’s business partners referenced the allegation as “a serious accusation of sexual misconduct.”
The employee made the allegations in April of that year and was later fired. After two investigations, one by the team and one by an outside law firm hired by the team, both said they were unable to find proof to substantiate the woman’s accusation, according to The New York Times.
The woman was later fired for lying to the team’s lawyers.
The settlement was reached in order to avoid any negative publicity from a potential lawsuit. It included a nondisclosure agreement and did not acknowledge any wrongdoing by Snyder or the organization.
Earlier this year multiple stories were published by The Washington Post detailing the volatile culture toward women within the organization.
The Washington Post talked to 40 women over the course of multiple reports about how they experienced sexual harassment while working for the team. One alleged example was a video that Dan Snyder requested containing “lewd outtakes” from the cheerleader's photoshoots in 2008 and 2010.
Snyder denies knowing the existence of such a video.
"It's hard, working there," said Rachel Engleson, a former director in the marketing and client services department on the “ESPN Daily” podcast. "You just know that depending on the certain way you dress there's gonna be comments made about what you're wearing, how you look. When you walk through the office, you're just kind of waiting for the comments to come from male colleagues. I would get inappropriate comments about my hair, my outfit, how I looked, in public, in front of my own clients.”
In the original article, detailing the experiences of 15 of the women, some of the instances of harassment include, unsolicited overtures, comments on their appearance and body; and that women were encouraged to wear revealing clothing and told to flirt with suite holders.
It was reported that women “cried about the realization their dream job of working in the NFL came with what they characterized as relentless sexual harassment and verbal abuse that was ignored—and in some cases, condoned—by top team executives," according to Newsweek.
"It was the most miserable experience of my life," Emily Applegate, the only former Washington female employee named in the report, said. "And we all tolerated it because we knew if we complained—and they reminded us of this— there were 1,000 people out there who would take our job in a heartbeat."