The bounty scandal isn’t the only problem hanging over the New Orleans Saints.
Team officials were accused in a 2010 lawsuit of covering up the theft of the prescription narcotic Vicodin from team headquarters, an allegation that triggered an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. While it is unlikely the feds would prosecute Saints executives for paying players to injure opponents, officials could face criminal charges or civil penalties for covering up the theft of the powerful pain medication.
The status of the investigation remains unclear nearly two years after the DEA said it would look into allegations raised by Geoffrey Santini, the Saints’ former security director. A DEA spokesman in New Orleans and Greg Bensel, a spokesman for the team, did not return calls from the Daily News. An NFL spokesman said he did not know anything about the probe. Santini’s attorney, Donald Hyatt, declined to comment.
Santini sued the Saints for damages and back pay in Louisiana state court in April of 2010. Santini, a retired FBI agent, claimed he resigned as the Saints security chief because of a dispute with general manager Mickey Loomis over how to handle the Vicodin theft.
“I was witnessing crimes, and I wasn’t going to stand for that,” Santini told Gannett Louisiana Newspapers in an interview in May of 2010. “I did everything I could to save the people that were involved, but it just didn’t go that way. Mickey didn’t let it.”
Santini’s 13-page lawsuit says Saints assistant coach Joe Vitt was caught on a surveillance camera removing Vicodin from a medicine cabinet at the Saints’ team facility. The suit also claims head coach Sean Payton was allowed to take an excessive amount of Vicodin from the team’s supplies.
Santini’s lawsuit claims that Loomis asked him to cover up the theft of the prescription pain medication. Instead, Santini says, he chose to resign.
Santini and Hyatt dismissed the suit two weeks after it was filed because attorneys for the Saints invoked a clause in his contract that allowed them to take the case to arbitration, a process which is speedier than a civil trial but is also conducted privately.
0 comments:
Post a Comment