Former coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, Jon Gruden, has taken legal action against the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodall, citing what he refers to as a “Soviet-style character assassination.” This comes after a number of Gruden’s emails, containing racist, homophobic, and misogynistic content, were made public.
Gruden’s legal team officially filed the lawsuit on Thursday in a district court in Clark County, Nevada. The controversy arose just over a month ago when Gruden’s emails were brought to light by publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. These emails were exchanged between 2011 and 2018 during Gruden’s tenure as a commentator for ESPN. The NFL gained access to these emails in June of this year, as part of an investigation into the culture at the Washington Football Team organization, among a batch of 650,000 emails.
Adam Hosmer-Henner, Gruden’s legal representative, alleges that the NFL purposefully leaked private communication between Gruden and Bruce Allen to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times in an effort to tarnish Gruden’s reputation and push him out of his position.
The lawsuit further claims that the NFL held on to these emails for an extended period, strategically choosing to release them during the middle of the Raiders’ season to inflict maximum harm on Gruden without any prior notice or recourse.
In response, NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy dismissed these allegations as lacking in merit and stated that the League is prepared to dispute all accusations.
