Six former employees of the newly named Washington Commanders joined members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee on Thursday to discuss workplace misconduct within the organization.
The roundtable produced additional allegations of workplace misconduct within the organization, including claims of inappropriate behavior from team owner Dan Snyder.
Former marketing coordinator Emily Applegate said she was “harassed on a daily basis by the team’s former chief marketing officer.” Brad Baker, a former video production manager for the franchise, says he was “told to edit together lewd footage” from a Washington cheerleader calendar shoot, “soundtracked to Dan Snyder’s favorite bands.”
Former cheerleader and marketing manager Tiffani A. Johnston directly implicated Snyder, stated that she was seated next to him at a work dinner “strategically” so that he could put “his hand on the middle of my thigh until I physically removed it,” an act done without her consent. She was later “aggressively pushed” by Snyder toward his limo before one of his attorneys told him it was a “very bad idea,” she said. One of Johnston’s former bosses with the franchise corroborated the story in a letter.
Following its release, Snyder put out a statement, acknowledging that past behavior inside the organization was “unacceptable,” while denying the allegations leveled against him personally in Thursday’s roundtable.
Specifically, Snyder said, “I unequivocally deny having participated in any such conduct, at any time and with respect to any person.”
The roundtable comes as a number of former employees have been critical in recent months of the league’s handling of the probe into Washington, which did not produce a public written report.
Instead, after the team was investigated following allegations of workplace misconduct and sexual harassment within the franchise, the NFL provided only a brief summary of the findings and levied a $10 million fine against the team. Snyder also agreed to temporarily cede control of the team to his wife, Tanya.
The investigation was brought on after the Washington Post reported that female employees of the team experienced sexual harassment in 2020. And later franchise cheerleaders claimed to have been secretly videotaped while getting undressed, and reached a settlement with the team.
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