The Arizona Cardinals were ordered to pay former executive Terry McDonough $3 million for defamatory statements they made publicly after he filed a grievance for wrongful termination and other things.
ESPN’s Tisha Thompson has the full report and revealed an interesting fact that somehow includes legendary receiver Larry Fitzgerald.
How?
Arbitrator Jeffrey Mishkin detailed how the Cardinals got info related to spousal abuse allegations they referred to in their public response to McDnough’s grievance.
In September 2018, former Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald received an unsolicited letter from McDonough’s former father-in-law accusing McDonough of abandoning his daughter. Fitzgerald gave the letter to a team executive who “did not notify Mr. Bidwill of the allegations in the letter” but instead “put the letter in Mr. McDonough’s employment file and never spoke a word of it to Mr. Bidwill until nearly five years later,” when the team searched McDonough’s “emails and files for potential content to include” in its statement, according to Mishkin’s decision.
This raises all sorts of questions. Why did the former father-in-law send it Fitzgerald? Why wasn’t Bidwill told? Why didn’t anyone follow up before making public comments about McDonough’s character without real knowledge of the situation?
This continues to be an ugly situation that hopefully will have some sort of conclusion soon.
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