Lost amid all the attention and celebration last week about the sales agreement in place for the Washington Commanders, it is worth noting that the team suffered another defeat recently in the field of shame.
Let the score now read: Jason Friedman 2, Dan Snyder and the Washington Commanders 0.
The former long-time Commanders employee, who was vilified by the organization after he testified to members of Congress, was validated for the second time about his allegations that the team committed financial improprieties by withholding refundable security deposits from former season ticket holders.
D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb announced the Commanders agreed to pay $425,000 in fines to the District and $200,000 to D.C. residents impacted by the con the team had pulled for years – keeping refundable security deposits from season ticket holders.
That’s 2-for-2. In November, the Commanders agreed to pay the state of Maryland $250,000 and refund deposits resulting from an investigation from the state’s attorney general.
On deck remains the Virginia attorney general, who also launched his own investigation into the financial irregularities, spurred on by a letter to the Federal Trade Commission from the House Oversight and Reform Committee in April 2022 saying the Commanders may have conducted business illegally. That investigation is ongoing.
All three probes and a grand jury criminal investigation into the charges by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia, according to an ESPN report, have come from the testimony of Friedman, a former vice president of sales and customer service who worked for the team for 24 years, before the House oversight committee last year.
This is what the Commanders-hired weasels said in response to Friedman’s testimony, in an April 2022 letter to the Federal Trade Commission:
“We are confident that, had this referral not come from a Congressional Committee, the FTC would exercise its discretion to decline to open an investigation based on the uncorroborated and implausible allegations of a single disgruntled former employee, especially one with such notable impairments to his credibility as set forth below,” attorney Jordan Siev of Reed Smith LLP wrote.
Those “impairments” later “set forth” include describing Friedman as an “untrustworthy” former employee who was fired for “professional misconduct” in October 2020. The letter said Friedman “repeatedly berated his staff, including minority women” and “created a culture of fear.”
That sounds like Snyder’s resume.
In the response, former team director of finance Paul Szczenski said Friedman’s claims were “speculative, uninformed guesswork” and said he “had virtually no visibility into the Team’s accounting function. He was not present at meetings of the accounting team or included in [their] communications except in very limited circumstances when it involved his department,” according to the letter.
Yet here we are, two settlements and $875,000 in fines and other charges later – cases built on those “speculative” claims by Friedman.
Schwalb said in a statement about the settlement, “Rather than being transparent and upfront in their ticket sale practices, the Commanders unlawfully took advantage of their fan base, holding on to security deposits instead of returning them.”
That sure sounds a lot like what former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said in November as part of his office’s settlement with the team:
“For many years, the Commanders kept money that was not theirs,” he said in a statement. “It belongs to their customers. Today’s settlement will require the team to return the monies owed to consumers. The Commanders will pay a penalty, and they will be enjoined from engaging in similar practices in the future.”
These are settlements, of course, and it is made clear that the team is not saying it is guilty of any of these allegations. Yet in its response to the D.C. settlement, the team is no longer doing what it was accused of.
“We have not accepted security deposits or seat licenses in more than a decade and have been actively working to return any remaining deposits since 2014,” a Commanders spokesperson said in a statement.
That is the sort of thing you tell your probation officer.
The Jason Friedman validation tour is not over. There still are the Virginia attorney general probe and the federal grand jury investigation.
There is also the NFL investigation being conducted by former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White into sexual misconduct charges made by former team employee Tiffani Johnston against Snyder. During the congressional hearing, she accused the owner of placing his hand on her inner thigh under a table at a dinner and then later “aggressively” pushing her toward his limousine.
Friedman wrote a letter to the committee backing Johnston’s charges: “I witnessed Dan Snyder grab the arm of my coworker Tiffani Johnston and attempt to pull her into his limousine,” he said. “This took place over a dinner in Washington, D.C. I was shocked. Thankfully, Tiffani was able to pull away.”
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has maintained that investigation is continuing, even with Snyder putting the team up for sale. Those results, Goodell has said, will be made public in the form of a written report — unlike the league’s effort to bury Beth Wilkinson’s findings on the Commanders’ toxic workplace.
I’m sure for many out there, after more than two years of ugly noise surrounding this organization, the only thing anyone wants to read about is a deal for the sale of the team between Snyder and a new owner. You want the noise to stop. You want peace.
But there is justice still to be done. And remember what President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said: “Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.”
Snyder sailing off to Europe with $6 billion in his wallet without facing full accountability is not justice. It is Commodus leaving Rome with chariots of gold without facing Maximus in the Colosseum. It is Hans Gruber leaving Nakatomi Plaza with the bearer bonds and John McClane still stuck in the elevator shaft.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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