Washington, DC AG Karl Racine says the team has unlawfully withheld deposits from season-ticket holders.
Another day, another Washington Commanders lawsuit. On Thursday, DC Attorney General Karl Racine announced that his office is suing the NFL team for the second time in the past 10 days.
This time, Racine is alleging that the team ran a “decades-long unlawful scheme” to hold back deposits from season-ticket holders.
The first lawsuit, which came to light last week, alleges that four parties — owner Dan Snyder, the NFL, the Washington Commanders, and commissioner Roger Goodell — deceived residents of the nation’s capital about the independent investigation into workplace misconduct within the Commanders organization.
“The Commanders’ arrogance and blatant disregard for the law is a slap in the face to District residents who have supported the team for decades,” Racine said in a statement. “We deserve better, and today my office is taking action yet again to hold them accountable.”
According to the most recent lawsuit, the Commanders held nearly $200,000 in unreturned deposits from D.C. residents. While the first lawsuit named four entities, the second only lists the Commanders as defendants, stating the organization “improperly withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars in security deposits from hundreds of District consumers.”
Click here to read the full complaint from the DC Attorney General.
The Commanders organization is denying the allegations.
“The team has not accepted security deposits for over 20 years in the case of premium tickets and over a decade in the case of suites, and we began returning them to season ticket holders as early as 2004,” a spokesperson told sports business reporter A.J. Perez.
Additionally, the team said it brought in an outside law firm and forensic auditors to conduct a review of accounts, claiming no evidence supporting the allegations was found in the process.
“You can’t lie to D.C. residents in order to protect your image and profits and get away with it. No matter who you are — even if you’re the National Football League,” Racine said last Thursday.
In early November, owner Dan Snyder and wife Tanya, announced they hired a private bank in what appears to be their first step to finally selling the team. In their statement, they also promised that they’d give fans “the best product on the field” while setting a “gold standard for workplaces in the NFL.”
If the allegations hold true, then that gold standard is already starting to fade.
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