Another sports scandal (Karen Haley vs Brian Mitchell)

The Washington Times | September 6, 2002

[Dante3]

A police officer filed an $11 million lawsuit claiming Philadelphia running back Brain Mitchell assaulted her and team executives covered it up.

Karen Haley claims she was romantically involved with Mitchell for four months and during a date at the player's penthouse apartment in September 2001, she told him she contacted his wife. Mitchell became angry and "put her in a half-nelson, a head lock and shoved her onto the bed and twisted her right arm behind her back," Haley's attorney, Steven S. Melitzky, said.

She since underwent surgery on her arm, has been placed on light duty and is "in danger of never fully recovering, which puts her career in jeopardy," Melitzky said.

[7thson]

But hey - he was one of the 70 best players in Redskins history.

[LenS]

She's boffing a married man and then tells him she's talked to his wife -- she's either too stupid to be a cop or she's a blackmailer and thus too crooked to be a cop.

[uncbob]

She's boffing a married man and then tells him she's talked to his wife -- she's either too stupid to be a cop or she's a blackmailer and thus too crooked to be a cop

Mitchell has a local radio show
Be curious to see if it gets dropped

[vrwinger]

Aren't the criminal courts for handling assault charges? Why wasn't he assested on the spot? Why wasn't he indicted? Someting here doesn't pass the smell test...

[Poohbah]

Aren't the criminal courts for handling assault charges?

The suit alleges that the Eagles front office arranged for the event to be covered up.

I can believe it.

[Dante3]

It does seem odd. I wanted to find how the coverup was pulled off. I tried yahoo and google and found no information.

As to her career being in jeopardy, I'd just as soon she wasn't part of the police dept. Surely she didn't think that telling him she told his wife would put him in a good mood.

[vrwinger]

Exactly how was this "covered-up"? No charges were filed.

Had she gone to the press with her story, I guarantee the papers would have printed it, since both the Inquirer and the Daily News (same company) relish painting the Eagles and their management in the most unflattering portraits as possible. Nothing Joe Banner would have said would have "covered it up."

Same with the Sport Talk Radio in the market. WIP 610-AM carried the Eagles games a few years ago, and when they lost the broadcast rights to an FM station, they have been no friend to the Eagles management. They would have run full speed with a Player/Front Office scandal.

[Poohbah]

There may have been some intimidation from the civic side--i.e., her chain of command.

These "public-private partnerships" where the public assumes all the liability and the team owners accept all the profit breed these kinds of problems like nothing else out there.

[vrwinger]

My point is this: How did the Philly media & the Philly police handle the Alan Iverson sitaution a few months back? With that in mind, subsitute the player, though not as popular as Iverson, is a star on a local team and the victim, who happens to be a police officer, and tell me how we hear nothing about it until a civil suit is filed? Something doesn't add up....

[Dante3]

An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Sept. 6) included the following statements:

"Mitchell, 34, said yesterday he was not permitted to comment on the suit. Eagels official declined to discus the suit, which also accuses team president Joe Banner and security director Butch Buchanico of defaming Haley.

"The suit claims that Banner phoned then-Deputy Police Comissioner Sylvester Johnson to tell him Haley had been harassing running back Duce Staley. And it accuses Buchanico of implying that Haley was a "hindrance, liar, vixen and temptress" by denying that she and Mitchell had been dating.

"The suit seeks to recover more than $2 milion from Mitchell, and the rest of the damages from the Eagles and the two officials."

The article reveales that Haley is a single mom (doesn't say how many children) and that she said that she wanted to break off with Mitchell because she found out he was seeing other women. They met in June 2001 at Bluezette, an Old City bar.