New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft intervened to try to kill a New York Post story featuring photos of head coach Mike Vrabel and NFL reporter Dianna Russini at a luxury Arizona resort, according to multiple sources.
The photos, published April 7 by the Post’s Page Six, showed Vrabel and Russini holding hands with fingers interlocked, hugging, sitting poolside in swimsuits and appearing to dance at the adults-only Ambiente resort in Sedona. The images were taken March 28. Both are married to other people.
Vrabel, 50, and Russini, 43, issued near-identical statements calling the images misleading and insisting the interactions were “completely innocent.” Vrabel said any suggestion otherwise was “laughable” and did not deserve further response. Russini said the photos did not show the full group of six people who were hanging out that day.
Yet neither has publicly produced additional evidence — such as group photos, text messages or witness statements — to support the claim of a larger, innocent gathering, despite widespread questions about the context.
Russini resigned from The Athletic on April 14 amid an internal investigation prompted by the photos. In a defiant letter, she said she had “no interest in submitting to a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I am willing to accept.”
The NFL has said it will not investigate Vrabel for a potential personal conduct policy violation. Patriots officials have not commented on whether the team is conducting its own review.
Sources told In Touch Weekly that Kraft, 84, used the extra time the Post gave Vrabel to respond to pressure the newspaper through intermediaries and a crisis strategist in an unsuccessful bid to stop publication.
The episode has drawn extra scrutiny because of Kraft’s own history with a high-profile personal scandal. In 2019, Kraft was charged with solicitation of prostitution after police said he visited the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Fla., twice in one day and paid for sex acts. Video surveillance allegedly captured the encounters. Prosecutors later dropped the charges against Kraft and more than two dozen other men, and a judge ordered the videos destroyed in 2021.
Kraft has never admitted wrongdoing and has described the case as a misunderstanding involving human trafficking victims at the spa. The Patriots owner has long been one of the NFL’s most influential figures and has remained active in league affairs.
Vrabel, hired by Kraft in 2025 after leading the Patriots to the Super Bowl, has continued his duties, including draft preparations. Russini, a prominent NFL insider who previously worked at ESPN, has not commented further since her resignation.
The episode has fueled online debate about journalistic ethics, coach-reporter boundaries and the differing professional consequences for the two parties involved. As of Monday, neither Vrabel nor Russini has offered further public proof to bolster their accounts of an innocent group outing.
Flip the pages for photos from the resort.
