By Ross Jackson
Not all publicity is good publicity, as it turns out.
After years of insisting separation from initial reports by the Associated Press and Sports Illustrated of the New Orleans Saints’ involvement with an child sexual abuse scandal linked to the Archdiocese of New Orleans, e-mails published Monday show more extensive involvement than the team initially acknowledged.
Following those first allegations, the Saints claimed that their involvement was minimal and limited to providing public relations assistance.
That is now in doubt after 276 emails have been obtained by various news sources, providing further information about the team executives’ deepening involvement in the scandal.
Those named by WWL Louisiana and the Guardian, as well as the Associated Press and the Times, after having obtained the emails include owner Gayle Benson, team spokesperson Greg Bensel and team president Dennis Lauscha. The alleged further involvement includes communication with a district attorney that allowed them to remove clergy names from the list of church officials that were faced with credible allegations of child sexual assault.
“Bensel – the teams’ vice-president for communications – wrote an email to Lauscha on November 1, 2018,” WWL Louisiana reports. “The day before the clergy-abuse list was released. Using common abbreviations for ‘conference call’ and ‘with,’ Bensel wrote: ‘Had a cc w (New Orleans’ then district attorney) Leon Cannizzaro last night that allowed us to take certain people off the list.’”
The Saints have both previously and since denied such involvement.
“No Saints employee had any responsibility for adding or removing any names from that list or any supplemental list. Nor did any Saints employee offer any input, suggestions or opinions as to who should be included or omitted from any such lists. Any suggestion that any Saints employee had any role in removing anyone from the Archdiocese’s published lists of credibly-accused clergy is categorically false,” the team told WWL Louisiana when asked for comment.
Where things go from here for the named executives is anyone’s guess. The NFL could choose to investigate the situation themselves which could lead to league discipline, in addition to what has the potential to play out in court.
For fans, the news has already begun to call into question the future of the franchises’ ownership. Not only is Saints leadership implicated in this situation, but simultaneously the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans franchise.
One also has to wonder how this impacts a team’s perception while presently pursuing its top remaining head coach candidate.
Monday afternoon, ESPN Insider Adam Schefter noted that the team’s pursuit of Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore is expected to end in him being the team’s next head coach, barring any setbacks. This certainly feels like it has the potential to be a setback. But Moore could be willing to separate the on-field product from this developing information. One thing is for sure, New Orleans will have to approach this with their top candidate head on.
While this is not an on-field incident, nor one that impacts what does happen when it comes to football operations, the possible ripple effects are clear. The Saints are an organization that prides itself on stability. From the football side of things, one must wonder whether or not these unearthed emails will have an impact on that very stability at the top of the team’s totem pole.
