A former NFL Network employee has filed a lawsuit alleging that she endured repeated sexual harassment and abuse from co-workers, including ex-football stars Marshall Faulk, Donovan McNabb, Eric Davis and Warren Sapp.
The NFL Network suspended Faulk, a retired running back who is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and fellow analysts Heath Evans and Ike Taylor after the allegations surfaced, spokesman Alex Riethmiller confirmed to HuffPost in an email. Evans and Taylor also are former players.
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McNabb and Davis, who used to work for the NFL Network, were suspended by ESPN, their current employer. Sapp hasn’t worked for the NFL Network since 2015, when he was fired after being arrested for allegedly soliciting a prostitute. Those charges were later dropped.
The sexual misconduct allegations against the ex-players were detailed in an amended lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Monday by Jami Cantor, a former wardrobe stylist at the NFL Network
In the complaint, first reported by Bloomberg News, Cantor accused Faulk of fondling her breasts and exposing his penis as he demanded oral sex. She said that Evans, a former fullback, sent nude pictures and made unwelcome propositions, and that Taylor, an ex-defensive back, sent her a video of him masturbating in the shower.
Marshall Faulk won't be a commentator on the NFL Network for the foreseeable future.
Icon Sports Wire via Getty Images
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“The supervisors knew about it, the supervisors observed it,” Cantor’s lawyer, Laura Horton, said, according to The New York Times. “It was insidious in this particular environment.”
She alleged another man, former NFL Network executive Eric Weinberger, groped her and pushed his genitals against her. Weinberger has been suspended by his current company, The Ringer.
The suit alleges McNabb, a longtime NFL quarterback, sent her lewd messages and that Davis, who played 13 seasons in the NFL as a defensive back, groped her. Both men most recently have been hosting radio shows for ESPN.
Sapp, according to the suit, gave Cantor sex toys as Christmas gifts three years in a row and showed her nude photos of other women with whom he claimed to have had sexual relations. He also is in the NFL Hall of Fame.
Cantor asserts that she was wrongfully terminated by the NFL Network, where she worked 10 years until her dismissal for allegedly stealing in 2016. Cantor, then 51, said she complained about the working conditions to no avail and was replaced by a woman 21 years younger than her.
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Cantor originally filed her suit in October.
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