Former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden has sued Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL, alleging that a “malicious and orchestrated campaign” was used to destroy Gruden’s career by leaking old emails he had sent that included racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments.
The suit was filed in district court in Clark County, Nevada, on Thursday, exactly a month after Gruden resigned as Raiders coach following the publication of his emails by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
The emails sent to former Washington Football Team executive Bruce Allen from 2011 to 2018 during Gruden’s time as an announcer at ESPN included racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments. They came from a set of 650,000 emails obtained by the league in June during an investigation into the workplace culture of the Washington Football Team.
Gruden’s attorney, Adam Hosmer-Henner, said in a statement that the defendants “selectively leaked Gruden’s private correspondence to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times in order to harm Gruden’s reputation and force him out of his job.”
“In contrast to the formalities of the Washington Football Team investigation, Defendants’ treatment of Gruden was a Soviet-style character assassination,” the lawsuit alleges. “There was no warning and no process. Defendants held the emails for months until they were leaked to the national media in the middle of the Raiders’ season in order to cause maximum damage to Gruden.”