Three starting offensive linemen for the Miami Dolphins “engaged in a pattern of harassment” toward teammate Jonathan Martin, another offensive lineman and an assistant trainer that included racist and homophobic language and improper touching, according to an investigation commissioned by the NFL.
The investigation concluded that harassment by the three players - Richie Incognito, John Jerry and Mike Pouncey - caused significant emotional distress for Martin, who abruptly left the team in October amid reports that he had been bullied by Incognito. What is now clear is that the episode extended far beyond Incognito and Martin. Incognito was labeled “the main instigator” in the harassment, while Jerry and Pouncey “tended to follow Incognito’s lead.” Incognito was said to have dictated the locker-room culture.
The findings were announced by Ted Wells, a defense lawyer who was hired by the NFL in November to conduct an independent investigation into the bullying scandal that engulfed the Dolphins and the league, and cast a spotlight on the issue of workplace conduct in the locker room.
“The report rejects any suggestion that Martin manufactured claims of abuse after the fact to cover up an impetuous decision to leave the team,” Wells said in a statement.
Incognito’s lawyer, Mark Schamel, said the Wells report was “replete with errors.”
“The facts do not support a conclusion that Jonathan Martin’s mental health, drug use or on-field performance issues were related to the treatment by his teammates,” Schamel said in a statement. “It is disappointing that Mr. Wells would have gotten it so wrong, but not surprising. The truth, as reported by the Dolphins players and as shown by the evidence, is that Jonathan Martin was never bullied by Richie Incognito or any member of the Dolphins’ offensive line.”
Incognito was suspended indefinitely Nov. 3 amid allegations that he bullied Martin, who had left the team a week earlier. Martin returned to California to undergo counseling for emotional issues. Among Martin’s claims were that Incognito had left text and voice mail messages that included racial epithets and menacing language.
Incognito, responding in an interview with Fox NFL Sunday that was broadcast Nov. 10, did not deny that he had used profane language. But, he said, such behavior was typical within the context of their relationship. He also said he had never realized that he had offended Martin.
More than 1,000 of their text messages, from October 2012 to November 2013, were made public at the end of January, and they revealed a friendship that seemed genuine. Their exchanges - many containing lewd descriptions and crude language from both players - meandered from women to football to their social lives, and on the surface did not depict Incognito as a bully.
But the investigation found that other text messages Martin sent to his parents and others corroborate his account and that the harassment was a contributing factor in his decision to leave the team.
According to the report, Martin was teased “on a persistent basis with sexually explicit remarks about his sister and his mother and at times ridiculed with racial insults and other offensive comments” while the trainer, who was born in Japan, was “the object of racial slurs and other racially derogatory language.”
The trainer was said to have confided in Martin that he was upset, but he denied in interviews with investigators that Incognito had offended him because he said he was worried about losing the trust of players.
An unnamed offensive lineman was said to have been taunted with homophobic insults and touched in a mockingly suggestive manner. Offensive line coach Jim Turner was said to have given offensive linemen stocking stuffers before Christmas 2012 that included inflatable female dolls for all the linemen except the unnamed player, who received a male doll. When interviewed, Turner said he could not remember giving the lineman a male doll. Martin was said to have engaged in the teasing, but not touching, of that player.
Incognito had been relatively silent during the course of the investigation, but on Wednesday he wrote a string of posts on Twitter directed at Martin and “his camp.” It began innocuously, with Incognito saying that he was “ready to move on with my life and career” before claiming that he had been “dragged through the mud for months by my ‘best friend.’ ” He went on to say that “the truth is going to bury you” before divulging that Martin had told him that he had considered suicide in May 2013 because he had not been playing well.
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross also released a statement Friday, saying the team would review the report in detail before responding to its findings.
Sports, Pages 21 on 02/15/2014