New Orleans Saints FO asks court to hide emails related to Catholic sex abuse scandal from public.

The Game Room
1

From what I gather, senior officials in the New Orleans Saints front office used team email addresses to advise their local Catholic dioscese on containing PR fallout of the widespread accusations of sexual abuse coverups in the Catholic Church (Gayle Benson, the owner, is devout). These were discovered in discovery (heh) by plaintiffs suing the church, and both the Saints and the church (double heh) are moving that these emails remain private, accusing the plaintiffs of wanting them for the sole purpose of releasing them to the public and smearing the defendants.

Any guesses what might happen as a result of this, NFL-wise?

2

Gayle Benson inherited the Saints when her husband died. I suspect a franchise sale. Not immediately, but some time after the Saints lose the court battle to keep the emails private.

3

The defendants lawyers seem to want to poison the jury pool before a trial starts. The court should not allow them to do this. As noted, if the emails are used as evidence in a trial, then they will be released.

4

Was updating with the Saints’ response, but the original article had it.

Just noting that whatever the case, this is the stuff PR nightmares are made of.

5

“Saints” indeed.

6

Or maybe the plaintiffs want them for the purpose of building a court case against the defendants? You know, that kind of being the entire purpose of court discovery?

It sounds to me like those e-mails must be seriously damning of Benson, if she’s willing to take the bad publicity from not releasing them.

7

That isnt the issue before the court. The plaintiffs already have them. They want to make them public and that is NOT a part of the discovery process.