Deshaun Watson had to stop the bleeding.
24 women had sued him for massage assault, several others hadn’t sued him but had accused him and several more were considering filing a lawsuit.
He probably had to pay big bucks, but now he only has to deal with four lawsuits instead of 24.
The accusers’ lawyer Tony Buzbee released this exclusive statement to BSO.
“Today I announce that all cases against Deshaun Watson, with the exception of four, have settled,” plaintiffs attorney Tony Buzbee said in a statement. “We are working through the paperwork related to those settlements. Once we have done so, those particular cases will be dismissed. The terms and amounts of the settlements are confidential. We won’t comment further on the settlements or those cases.”
The settlements are confidential, so no word on what Watson had to pay out. Watson had an agreement to settle most of the cases for $100k a piece according to Buzbee when he was trying to get traded to Dolphins.
It also should be noted that the original accuser Ashley Solis has not settled her case and will likely take that case to trial. There is a non-disclosure agreement on both sides, so Watson won’t be able to proclaim his innocence, but the women won’t be able to speak about him publicly anymore. One would imagine the last four cases will be settled sooner than later.
Watson had spoken about how he wanted to see this through to the end to clear his name, but that wasn’t realistic. When you have 30+ women more or less giving the same type of story, the general public is going to believe some of it happened. The only real question was if it was consensual or not. There is really no argument that Watson loved his happy endings and had a lot of other activities happening during a professional massage. None of the women ever accused him of forcing them to do anything, but they felt pressured and that is where the gray area comes from.
This will make it easier for the NFL to hand down punishment. They didn’t want to hand down a punishment while Watson was proclaiming his innocence. While a settlement doesn’t mean you are guilty by not taking them to trial the NFL will see that as some admission of guilt.
Flip the pages for why Watson had to finally crack and settled.
