NFL Network suspends analysts over sexual misconduct suit

NEW YORK (AP) — Hall of Fame player Marshall Faulk and two other NFL Network analysts were suspended after a woman who worked as a wardrobe stylist at the network accused them of sexual misconduct in a lawsuit.
The NFL on Tuesday identified the three as Faulk, Ike Taylor and Heath Evans. They have been “suspended from their duties at NFL Network pending an investigation into these allegations,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said.
Jami Cantor described several sexually inappropriate encounters with the three retired players and others who have worked for NFL Network, according to court documents first reported by Bloomberg .
The lawsuit and suspensions are the latest in a wave of sexual misconduct allegations against prominent men in politics, entertainment and media.
Former NFL Network executive Eric Weinberger, former NFL Network analysts Donovan McNabb, Eric Davis, and Hall of Famer Warren Sapp, and former NFL Network employee Marc Watts also are named in the lawsuit.
Weinberger is president of the Bill Simmons Media Group and was placed on leave, according to a statement given to the New York Times . McNabb and Davis now work as ESPN radio contributors.
“We are investigating, and McNabb and Davis will not appear on our networks as that investigation proceeds,” ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said Tuesday.
None of the men named immediately responded to messages seeking comment from The Associated Press.
Cantor worked at NFL Network for a decade until she was fired in October 2016. In the suit against NFL Enterprises, she alleges age and sex discrimination, sexual harassment that created a hostile work environment, wrongful termination and defamation.
Cantor’s lawyer, Laura Horton, filed an amended complaint Monday to the original suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in October. The amended version includes the names of those accused and details about the sexual misconduct allegations.
Horton said she has not heard back from the NFL Network since the original filing in October.
“It’s been silent. It just went nowhere,” Horton said Tuesday. “They haven’t reached out to me. I don’t know what their next move will be.”
Cantor said in the suit that Faulk fondled and groped her and asked “deeply personal and invasive questions” about her sex life. Cantor said she received inappropriate and sexually explicit texts from Weinberger, McNabb, Taylor and Evans.
“It was a severe, pervasive, sexually charged work environment,” Horton said. “There was a lot of stuff going on. The texts and the video and the photographs, I’ve got them. It’s not like a he-said, she-said sort of thing. I’ve got documentary evidence.”
Faulk starred for the Indianapolis Colts and St. Louis Rams. The running back was the NFL’s MVP in 2000 and won a Super Bowl with the Rams in the 2000 game. He retired in 2005.
Taylor spent 12 seasons as a cornerback with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Evans, a fullback, was in the league for 10 seasons, mostly with Seattle, New England and New Orleans.