Bill Belichick Trying to Delay Testimony as The Dreaded "Other Man" in Divorce Proceedings?

New England Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick is perhaps the most successful coach in pro sports. He's won three Super Bowls with teams that were generally considered less talented than others, and despite losing his 1st and 2nd best wide receivers from last season (Deion Branch and David Givens), Belichick has coached the Pats to a 6-1 record this season, including a stunning 31-7 victory at Minnesota a few nights ago.

But as we discussed back in July, Coach Belichick--a married man who has been separated from his wife, Debbie, for the last two years--is also a central character in Vincent and Sharon Shenoca's messy divorce proceeding. According to Vincent, a construction worker from New Jersey, Belichick has had a nearly 20-year affair with Sharon, who worked as a receptionist for the New York Giants while Belichick was their defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells. Vincent claims that Belichick has showered Sharon with gifts, calls her all the time, flies her to be at games with him, and has generally destroyed his marriage. In fact, according to Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa in the Boston Herald, Sharon was also Belichick’s date to the Mets-Cardinals League Championship game earlier this month at Shea Stadium.

Back in August, a family court judge ordered that Belichick be available for questioning, particularly as to whether he has financed Sharon's "extravagant lifestyle," including membership in an upscale health club, a personal trainer, a vacation in Jamaica, a beach house rental on the Jersey Shore, travel by chartered jet, and brand new furniture and expensive clothing. Belichick is thus considered a "material witness" in the divorce proceedings--meaning that his testimony is considered essential--and the judge instructed him to "produce any financial records, credit card receipts, or bank transactions that reflect payments to Sharon." Since that time, attorneys for Belichick, Vincent, and Sharon, have been negotiating how and when Belichick should provide sworn testimony and what specific documents he must produce.

Interestingly, Belichick might not have to testify as to any sexual or romantic relations with Sharon because New Jersey is a "no-fault" state, meaning that if a husband or wife wishes to terminate the marriage, he or she can do so without cause and over the objection of the other spouse (although under New Jersey law, "no-fault" divorces are only eligible if the couple has been be separated for at least 18 months and has "no reasonable expectation of reconciliation"). But that doesn't take Belichick off the hook. As noted by Fee and Raposa, "Vincent's attorneys can - and have - asked to see how much money Belichick is forking over because that could have an impact on what Vincent may be ordered to pay his ex for alimony or child support."

Fee and Raposa speculate that Belichick's attorneys are trying to delay their client's involvement in the proceedings for as long as possible. That is not surprising, but it doesn't seem that Belichick will be able to postpone this matter until after the post season, which is clearly what he wants. And if that is true, then I suppose this supplies extra incentive for Belichick and the Pats to land a 1 or 2 seed in the AFC playoffs and thus receive a bye in the first round--and thus perhaps enough time for Belichick to end his involvement in what is undoubtedly a personally-distracting matter. Beating Peyton Manning and the 7-0 Indianapolis Colts this Sunday night will certainly help towards that end.

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Feds Allege Colombian Soccer Team a Drug Front

The Treasury department has accused a Colombian soccer team of being a front for the Norte de Valle drug cartel, headed by Specifically Designated Narcotics Trafficker Carlos Alberto "Beto" Renteria. The accusation has led one member of the Colombian football federation's executive board to resign, and will result in a freezing of the assets of the soccer team.

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Sports Agent Charged With Human Trafficking

According to the Miami Herald:

A California-based baseball agent and four assistants were indicted Tuesday, accused of financing and organizing a smuggling scheme to get Cuban baseball players out of the communist island.

Agent Gustavo "Gus" Dominguez of Total Sports International is accused of hiring four men to help him get 19 Cubans out of the island on Aug. 22, 2004, including several ball players -- some of them now playing for minor league teams in the U.S. -- and three children identified in the indictment only by their initials.

After bringing the players to Florida, the schemers allegedly moved them by van to California.

"In California, the defendants rented an apartment for the baseball players and provided food and clothing for them," according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office. "The defendants immediately began training and conditioning the baseball players and failed to present the baseball players to Customs and Border Protection for immigration processing in the United States."

The Indictment charges all five defendants with a conspiracy to bring aliens illegally into the United States, transporting the aliens in violation of law, and concealing and harboring the aliens from detection.

Although coaches have gotten in trouble under US immigration laws for their cross-border recruiting efforts, as Greg noted here, I believe this is the first sports agent to be so charged. Further support for the notion that students of sports law would do well to study up on immigration law.

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Is racism in sports on the rise?

Wash U law professor Christopher Bracey asks this question in a post yesterday at Blackprof.

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Jeffrey A. Williams, 1980 - 2006

Over the weekend of August 28th, our good friend and fellow sports law blogger Jeffrey A. Williams died suddenly of a subdural hematoma. He was only 26. A graduate of Columbia Law School and Columbia University, Jeff was a second-year attorney at the prestigious New York City law firm Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, where he worked primarily on mergers, acquisitions, and other aspects of corporate governance. You may remember Jeff from his wonderful guest posts on Sports Law Blog, as they astutely examined the interaction of race, sports, and the law. For instance, he discussed the Duke lacrosse scandal (5/4/2006 & 5/7/2006), race and the NFL Draft (5/7/2006), liability of the fan who started the Pistons-Pacers fight in 2005 (5/7/2006), masculinity and boxing (5/4/2006), and World Cup politics (6/18/2006).

Jeff was also a prolific scholar, publishing three law review articles in the last year and a half. They were Flagrant Foul: Racism in 'The Ron Artest Fight,' 13 UCLA Entertainment Law Review 55 (2005), Re-orienting the Sex Discrimination Argument for Gay Rights after Lawrence V. Texas, 14 Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 131 (2005), and The Equal Application Defense, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law (forthcoming, 2006). I strongly recommend that you download Jeff's Ron Artest law review article, as it is a great read and one that I use extensively in my teaching materials.

I know Jeff had aspirations of one day becoming a fellow sports law professor, and he undoubtedly would have achieved them. The sports law community has lost a great guy, a great friend, and an extremely promising young scholar. May he live on through his outstanding published writings and may God bless his family at this most difficult time.

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Harold Reynolds Sues ESPN for Wrongful Termination

Back in July, we discussed ESPN's decision to fire baseball analyst Harold Reynolds for allegedly sexually harassing a female employee. His firing in July occurred only four months after the 11-year employee had signed a six-year contract that would have paid him approximately $1 million annually. Be sure to check out the outstanding comments in response to that post. We debated the extent to which the workplace "situation" in which ESPN anchors find themselves--being famous ex-jocks or sports guys around young women in a college campus-style setting--might cause or encourage some of them to do really stupid things. In other words, we wondered whether ESPN has created a workplace environment akin to a male locker room, or whether this is really about the individual wrongdoers and not about their workplace.

Yesterday Reynolds struck back at ESPN, filing a wrongful termination lawsuit. His lawsuit seeks at least $5 million for the lost contract and unspecified amounts for "damages for lost future opportunities." Significantly, his employment contract included a clause that enabled ESPN to void the deal if Reynolds engaged in behavior that "would constitute an act of moral turpitude," but according to Reynolds, ESPN has never given him a "specific reason" for his firing.

Wrongful termination claims provide a wide-range of legal theories for discharged employees to recover. For instance, a successful wrongful termination can arise if the termination was the result of discrimination (race/gender/age/handicap/marital status etc.); violation of a statute; violation of an implied or oral contract; preventing an employee from receiving a benefit that is about to accrue; or a violation of public policy. If they have an employment contract--like Reynolds--they can also sue for breach of contract. In certain instances, although not apparently in Reynolds' instance, wrongfully discharged employees can also recover under tort law, including claims for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

According to the media coverage of Reynolds' complaint, he will argue that his contract's moral turpitude class was overly-ambiguous and that ESPN fired him in a more rapid and less deliberative way than they have fired, or would have fired, other employees for similar allegations. Along those lines, Reynolds will contend that ESPN failed to properly investigate the allegations leading to his discharge, and that its workplace environment contributed to, and perhaps even rewarded, sexist behavior.

Should this case go to trial, it will be interesting to see what details emerge about the ESPN workplace. Reynolds v. ESPN might unintentionally update Michael Freeman's ESPN: The Uncensored History (2001).

Update: Will Li alerts me that The Smoking Gun has just posted Reynolds' complaint, which was drafted by Reynolds' attorney, Joseph Garrison of Garrison, Levin-Epstein, Chimes & Richardson, P.C. in New Haven, Connecticut. As usual, Will also has some great comments and thoughts:

A couple of interesting things:

"During negotiations for any contract, ESPN raised no specific concerns about any past conduct or performance." (#9 from Reynolds' complaint)

Weren't there allegations of previous problems between HR and female co-workers? That said, the language in this doesn't say that there were not past incidents, just that ESPN did not include them in contract negotiations or put language in writing recognizing any previous incidents.

Items 14 and 15 are interesting - apparently ESPN hasn't been compliant with either Harold Reynolds's lawyer or the Connecticut Dept of Labor in providing a personnel file on Reynolds. This seems a bit strange to me if it's true, especially the part about not allowing "an employee of the Connecticut Department of Labor onto its premises."

The possibility of bureaucratic stalling aside, when corporations (like ESPN and Google) have basically created microcosms for their employees, where living and working are all essentially taken care of by the corporation, does the corporation take on additional liability, both to its employees and to the state? I don't know if that question makes complete sense.

Also, the suit does allow that Harold did hug an intern, and the fact that she did not complain for three weeks doesn't really mean a whole lot, in my opinion. That said, ESPN has been extremely tolerant of bad behavior by its celebrities in the past, and while it obviously doesn't condone his actions, it does make his immediate firing suspect. It will be interesting to see how ESPN responds to this.

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Can parents be liable for coach-bashing?

A pending case in the Utah Supreme Court will address the status of public high school coaches under defamation law. According to the Salt Lake Tribune,

The case pits Michael O'Connor, who coached the Lehi High School girls' basketball team for three years, against parents who alleged he was demoralizing team members by berating them and favoring one player over the others.

At the end of the 2003-04 season, tensions had risen so much that relatives of some of the players wrote letters outlining their concerns and a handful of them spoke at an Alpine School District Board meeting about their frustrations. A few months later, in September 2004, the Lehi High principal dismissed O'Connor as head coach of the team.

A lower court judged dismissed O'Connor's case on the grounds that he was a public official and therefore had to show actual malice to recover for defamation (which he failed to do). The parents' complaints about O'Connor

began piling up over alleged abusive comments, a suspected recruitment irregularity and possible mishandling of money raised by players. Particularly troublesome to many of the parents was O'Connor's perceived favoritism toward Michelle Harrison, a 6-foot-2 forward considered one of the top players in Utah. . . . [T]he parents were . . . upset by the way the coach yelled at their daughters and allegedly failed to give them their share of playing time.

Even if O'Connor wins his appeal and is found to not be a public official, his damages might be slight. He has not been terminated from his employment as teacher, nor as golf coach. HT to Ben Maller.

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