We kind of knew this was coming.
Attorney Tony Buzbee has filed the first lawsuit against the Texans, saying the franchise enabled former quarterback Deshaun Watson, who last week settled 20 of 24 civil lawsuits filed by women who say he sexually assaulted and harassed them during massage therapy sessions.
The lawsuit says the owner of Genuine Touch, a massage therapy company that partnered with the Texans, reported Watson’s habit of “seeking out an unusually high number of massages from strangers on Instagram” to the Texans as early as June 2020, but the franchise “did nothing about it.”
Buzbee announced plans earlier in June to add the Texans as defendants in some of the lawsuits, and, last week, Buzbee said his focus shifted toward tagging the Texans onto the four remaining suits to argue that they facilitated Watson’s massage sessions at a local hotel, effectively enabling the massages away from team facilities, and provided non-disclosure agreements for those sessions.
“We are aware of the lawsuit filed against us today,” the Texans said in a statement Monday. “Since March 2021, we have fully supported and complied with law enforcement and the various investigations. We will continue to take the necessary steps to address the allegations against our organization.”
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Watson pursued at least 66 different massage therapy sessions despite having a full Texans training staff available to him, plus the services of Genuine Touch, a specified massage therapy entity, the lawsuit says. Genuine Touch provided massage therapy to Texans players at the team’s facilities, the lawsuit says. Sometimes the therapy was available seven days a week.
Watson “refused to have massages done at the Texans stadium and instead preferred to reach out to strangers on Instagram for massages,” the lawsuit says, which adds “the Texans were well aware of Watson’s preference.”
The lawsuit says individuals within the Texans organization “knew or should have known of Watson’s conduct” and “turned a blind eye” on Watson’s behavior and “protected and shielded” their franchise quarterback in an attempt to also protect the organization itself.
Watson used Texans resources for his massage therapy sessions, the lawsuit says, which include a room the Texans set up for Watson at the Houstonian Hotel, massage tables the franchise provided him for private massage sessions and the NDA that [Brent Naccara, a former Secret Service agent who is the Texans’ director of security] provided him.
Roland Ramirez, Houston’s director of athletic training and physical therapy, told the Houston Police Department that he and Jack Easterby, the Texans’ executive vice president of football operations, helped secure Watson a membership at the Houstonian. Watson wasn’t old enough to secure a membership, Ramirez said, and Ramirez said he tagged his name to the membership as a third party.
Watson confirmed in his depositions that the Texans provided him the Houstonian membership he used to book rooms for massages, and the lawsuit notes the Houstonian has a physical therapy and massage staff that would’ve been an alternative to the women Watson pursued on Instagram.
The lawsuit says Ramirez received “several complaints” from the Houstonian’s general manager, Steve Fronterhouse, about “Watson and the number of women coming to Watson’s room there.”
Ramirez also told HPD that he found it “strange” when Watson asked him if he could borrow a massage table in August 2020.
A copy of the lawsuit is embedded in the story; there are also some allegations of gross behavior by Watson that I’ve skipped over. Beware if you want to read the whole thing. Tony Buzbee had talked about adding the Texans as a co-defendant in some of the lawsuits. This is a separate filing, which may partially be the result of many of those suits now being settled and thus unavailable as vehicles for action. Other topics covered in the story include the testimony from the HPD detective who thought Watson had committed crimes, and the huge number of massage therapists that Watson contacted during the time in question. There’s still a lot to be examined and discovered here, it would seem.
We’ll know later today how big a suspension the NFL will seek against Watson. I wonder now if perhaps the team will face some discipline as well. That would be up to the discretion of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and I’d wager it would come down to how bad the Texans look in all this, and thus how bad they make the league look. It’s too early to say on that, but we know that the more we learn about this whole thing, the worse it looks, so let’s keep an eye on it. Defector and Sean Pendergast have more.