An independent investigator hired by the NFL concluded that maligned Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Richie Incognito and others engaged in a pattern of chronic harassment and bullying of former teammate Jonathan Martin so severe that it caused Martin to crack and storm off from the team.
On Friday morning, renowned attorney Ted Wells released a scathing report indicating that offensive lineman Richie Incognito, center Mike Pouncey and offensive guard John Jerry “engaged in a pattern of harassment” directed at Martin, another young offensive lineman who wasn’t named and an assistant trainer.
Writes Wells’ team: “We find that the Assistant Trainer repeatedly was targeted with racial slurs and other racially derogatory language. Player A frequently was subjected to homophobic name-calling and improper physical touching. Martin was taunted on a persistent basis with sexually explicit remarks about his sister and his mother and at times ridiculed with racial insults and other offensive comments.”
Compounding the indictment against Incognito, the three antagonists signed a Dolphins workplace conduct policy agreement in 2013 in which harrassment was defined as “unwelcome contact; jokes, comments and antics; generalizations and put-downs.”
Wrote Wells: “Guided by this policy, it was not difficult to conclude that the Assistant Trainer and Player A were harassed, but the questions raised in Martin’s case were more complex, nuanced and difficult.”
The text messages between Incognito and Martin would seem to indicate that they were close buddies. But when Wells’ team consulted with a psychologist, the psychologist said Martin’s response was consistent “with the behavior of a victim of abusive treatment.”
“To be candid, we struggled with how to evaluate Martin’s claims of harassment given his mental health issues, his possible heightened sensitivity to insults and his unusual, ‘bipolar’ friendship with Incognito. Nonetheless, we ultimately concluded that Martin was indeed harassed by Incognito, who can fairly be described as the main instigator and by Jerry and Pouncey, who tended to follow Incognito’s lead.
“In reaching this conclusion, we were significantly influenced by multiple factors, including the flagrantly inappropriate treatment of the Assistant Trainer and Player A, which, independent of Martin’s claims, reflected a pattern of harassment. Moreover, shortly after Martin left the team, Incognito made a number of telling entries in a notebook used to keep track of ‘fines’ the offensive linemen imposed on each other in their ‘kangaroo court’ (typically for trivial infractions such as arriving late to meetings). Incognito recorded a $200 fine against himself for ‘breaking Jmart,’ awarded another lineman who had been verbally taunted a $250 bonus for ‘not cracking first,’ and wrote down a number of penalties against Martin for acting like a ‘pussy.’ The evidence shows and Incognito did not dispute, that ‘breaking Jmart’ meant causing Martin to have an emotional reaction in response to taunting. Approximately one week after Martin left the team on November 3, 2013, Incognito wrote nearly identical text messages to Pouncey and another lineman: ‘They’re going to suspend me Please destroy the fine book first thing in the morning.’ We view Incognito’s entries in the fine book about ‘breaking Jmart’ and his attempt to destroy the fine book — which was unsuccessful — as evidence demonstrating his awareness that he had engaged in improper conduct toward Martin.”
To read the rest of the 110-page report, click here.
