Beck Water
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Posts posted by Beck Water
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16 minutes ago, Bangarang said:
Sounds like they spoke to both sides, started to look into it more themselves and took the wait and see approach.Absolutely. So then the question would be, why they thought it was a good idea to take that approach?
This is absolutely my personal opinion, but I believe that the Bills didn't think the civil suit or criminal charges would be filed. I think they interpreted the plaintiff's lawyer's priority was to settle the case.
It had to be clear when they talked to the lawyer that there was no way the Bills by themselves could gather evidence that would unambiguously clear Araiza from allegations of facilitating or participating in a brutal gang rape. They were just allegations on July 30th, and they were just allegations on August 25th.
So what changed? It wasn't the details - those were in the LA Times. What changed was publicly associating Matt Araiza with those details through the allegations in civil suit. That enusured that McDermott, all the coaching staff, and all the players would read all those sickening details like a punch in the gut, as would several million of their opinionated "closest friends".
When they took the "wait and see" approach and cut Haack, do you honestly think the Bills believed that would happen? What if it had happened a few weeks forward from now, on the eve of a game, and the Bills got the choice between going into a game with a controversial punter (getting the side eye from his teammates) or having Barkley punt in a critical game?
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41 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
None of us know what the Bills knew. Plenty of conjecture though.
You're correct that none of us know what the Bills knew or when.
All of us can see the 29 July LA Times article that was published, with graphic and specific details about Jane Doe's condition and mention of the lawyer by name and his intention to file a civil suit. So the Bills knew, or could have known, all of those details then.
Then they received a phone call and a follow up email from the lawyer on July 30/August 1.
I'm not going to second-guess the Bills on not talking to that attorney again or asking to talk to the victim - her lawyer's words were they didn't "ask for her statement", there is very very low likelihood that the Bills would have been allowed by her lawyer to interview the victim
But it is a point that by not circling back to the lawyer or asking to talk to the victim, the Bills left some sources of information untapped.
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20 minutes ago, Bangarang said:
Was there even a civil suit when the Bills first spoke with the lawyer? Or was it a conversation about the potential of a suit? My understanding is that there wasn’t a suit at the time.You are correct, there was not a civil suit at the time. However, the lawyer had given graphic details to the LA Times (without naming the defendents) and stated that he was preparing to file a civil suit, the day before he called the Bills
Which can be seen two ways:
1) Oh, surely not .... you will want to settle so you get money
or
2) The warning rattle of a rattlesnake, indicating that biting is imminent if you don't exercise due care
The Bills seem to have chosen Door Number One.
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1 hour ago, UKBillFan said:
Ah, apologies for the misunderstanding if so. Odd how Wawrow apparently found these two teams but the Bills couldn't. Or perhaps did, and Beane answered the question very carefully.
Heh. I think if it's random - if you have 2 purple balls, and you remove at least 10 balls out of a basket initially holding 32 balls - your odds of not pulling a purple ball in 10 removals are something like 45%. Check me on that. It's a ratio of factorials.
It's probably not random - Beane probably has closer connections to some teams than others,
AP writer Rob Maadi, who I believe is Tampa-based, likewise probably has closer connections to some teams than others.
They may not be the same teams.
1 hour ago, UKBillFan said:In other words, did the Bills expect it to be settled? Otherwise, surely the risk of it coming out was obvious.
I've been talking about this with a guy who may know a guy. And the best we can come up with, is a disconnect between the Bills legal department, PR departments, FO and coaching and a misunderstanding of what this was.
Kathryn D'Angelo's boss is....Gregg Brandon, brother of Russ Brandon. So when she took the convo to her boss Brandon, his reaction may have been colored by "the way things were" (where people had more of a "players will be players, big deal" attitude). And from that view, the first step was to contact Araiza and his attorney and get their take. His attorney painted this publicly as a "cash grab" and may have been in settlement talks with the victim's attorney per the leaked texts.
If it was a "cash grab", actually filing the suit and publicizing the pictures is the nuclear option that would separate the cash cow from its lucrative grazing field. And apparently civil lawsuits are often nowhere near that specific and graphic if their intent is to be successful civil lawsuits, because that leaves the litigators more "wiggle room".
Believing it was a "cash grab" may have focused the Bills internal investigation (which I think they did conduct) on verifying Araiza's account of his involvement - reaching out independently to witnesses confirming the girl represented herself as in college, and that Araiza was not involved in the alleged rape -vs- actually trying to suss out the plaintiff's attorney's intentions and learn more about his intentions for the case, then conducting a broader review.
Also, it seems incredible to me, but I don't think the Bills actually had someone performing the due diligence of Googling LA Times articles and reading them. Because if they did, it only takes the most rudimentary PR chops to plug Araiza's name into the details that were provided in the July 29th article and to see that the optics of "Civil suit filed against Bills punter Matt Araiza and others for gang rape which left 17 year old girl with bloody clothes, bleeding from her *****, and with bruises on her neck and legs" are gonna be Very Very Bad.
I think the Bills were honestly blindsided by the filing and the shitstorm which followed, and that McDermott was honestly horrified and distressed by the details in the lawsuit. He reacted like they were totally novel to him, and he had no idea Araiza might be linked to something like that. But far from being "boulders" all those details were published in the press back in late July, just not linked to Araiza.
Clearly, we still only have allegations. The lawsuit is only allegations. Nothing likely changed in that regard between the lawyer's call, Monday when the Bills cut Haack, and Friday.
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5 minutes ago, Motorin' said:
Skurski should get over blaming Beane for not immediately releasing Araiza.
The only reason the Bills were in the position they were in is bc Araiza did not disclose that he was under investigation for rape.
The Bills had no way of knowing there was an open investigation. The fact that Araiza never told his agent, the NFL or the Bills is the cause of the short term black cloud over the organization.
Per Araiza's lawyer, he was surprised to read the June 3 LA Times article (which named no names) and realize there was an active criminal investigation ongoing, and that's when he started looking into hiring a criminal defense attorney. But the attorney seemed focused on defending Araiza from a charge of statutory rape. Whether that focus results from Araiza knowing he wasn't involved in anything else, or concealing/minimizing involvement, we can't say.
Apparently there were rumors around the athletic department around a gang rape and Araiza being potentially involved, and Araiza did not disclose this to teams pre-draft. Did he have an obligation to do so? (asking)
If there were rumors, it would also be true that the Bills could have uncovered them. And NFL teams employ former LEOs who have "ins" with law enforcement just so that they can get information - not confidential details, but whatever one LEO is comfortable sharing with another. I'm not sure what that would be in a case like this.
3 minutes ago, Motorin' said:Yeah, the one big mistake the Bills made was saying they had conducted a thorough examination prior to naming him starter when in reality they could not possibly have obtained all of the facts.
Beane was upfront that that was a poor response and that they should have said they are in the process of conducting an examination.
It's over now. They made mistakes, admitted them and did the right thing as soon as they could.
The whole situation is sad, but it's not something that should hang over their heads for the remainder of the season. And I don't think it will.
I am fervently hoping that you are correct.
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10 minutes ago, Motorin' said:
That's a really bad assumption given how long these types of cases take.
The case was only turned over to the DA two or three weeks ago. The fact that they have not brought charges in that time does not at all mean that they have refused to bring charges. They are still evaluating...
TBH, there may be some cause-and-effect relationship between the alleged victim's lawyer going to the press with interviews and photos (July 29th), and the DA getting the case (Aug 5th)
It's possible that "shook something loose" where either the DA reached out to the SDPD and said "just WTF are you guys sitting on here? what are you waiting for?" or someone in the SDPD said "we better identify what we're waiting for, fill those gaps, and move this along or we're gonna be on the slide end of a public microscope"
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16 minutes ago, LyndonvilleBill said:
Apologies. I didn't meant to imply that's what you were saying. I was more asking the question of "IF they did" wouldn't they already have made an arrest? IMO, It would REALLY bad if they had something and didn't act on it immediately...
I think the end game for the DA here isn't to make an arrest, it's to obtain convictions. Toward that end, it's more important that they gather as much evidence as they can and put the most solid case they can together, before they charge and make arrests.
I'm hazy on what the law is here, but I believe once a person is charged and arrested, they have the legal right to full information about the evidence against them? Hopefully one of our lawyers here will clarify.
With that understanding, if the arrest is made too soon and the police provide further evidence and the defendant's lawyers aren't notified in a timely way, it can jeopardize the case?
The other question is the seriousness of charges to be filed, which depend upon a complete picture.
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16 minutes ago, loyal2dagame said:
Did teams other than the Pats* know Aaron Hernandez was a homosexual sociopathic gang member? Because New England acted like they didn't know.
All teams have problems vetting players.
I believe if you go here
you can find some answers to that question.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324436104578581772197037576
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/patriots/2013/06/20/aaron-hernandez-investigation/2443091/
"And the message Thursday from around the NFL was simple: They were warned."
Sometimes the issue isn't lack of information or problems vetting players. It's that teams know there are problems, and choose to take a chance on drafting the player anyway because of the player's high potential at football. Hernandez appears to meet those criteria.
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Just now, UKBillFan said:
Araiza went into the draft with doubts about his holding and hang time. On most mock drafts he was the third or fourth punter to be picked, and he went third. There is nothing to indicate whether the two who chose before us had a clue about any of the allegations or not.
I don't think @SectionC3 was referencing the two teams that picked punters before Araiza. I think he was referencing the AP report that two teams (who did not draft punters) learned there were allegations of some sort around SDSU football players and possibly involving Araiza.
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2 minutes ago, Giuseppe Tognarelli said:
Very disappointed in Sal M. and Jay Skurski this morning.
Why? What did Sal M and Skurski tweet/say/publish?
Spill the Tea!
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16 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
There's no hard evidence of that. Just conjecture. Also no evidence of what was known.
Dude, AP has its detractors, but they do require that anything they publish be backed up by two independent primary sources.
Which goes quite a bit beyond "conjecture" to most of us, even if the sources are anonymous and thus not "hard evidence". The statement was these teams weren't interested in drafting a punter and that they didn't have details, but just uncovering such a report would be cause for a team that IS interested in drafting a punter to dig deeper and press harder.
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6 minutes ago, 4merper4mer said:
Agreed. Maybe they were and maybe they were not. The victim probably doesn’t know whether they were. The SDPD is not going to share any of this with a football team.
August 5 LA times article, police spokesman states the case they forwarded to the DA includes 3 terabytes of digital evidence. That's a lot of terabytes if there aren't videos/photos.
28 minutes ago, 4merper4mer said:Section C3 stole my kittens is evidence?
Section C3 states under oath that he had kittens, and he remembers seeing 4merper4mer putting them in a basket and walking away with them, is, in fact, evidence. I believe it's called "eyewitness testimony" FWIW.
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12 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
Maybe they should employ psychics? People keep asking "why didn't they know?"
It's quite plausible to me what someone suggested, that perhaps the Bills weren't expecting to draft Araiza in the round where they had him slotted, so they didn't put much of their horsepower into vetting him.
But it's not "psychic needed" levels of implausible to believe that some info was out there and able to be uncovered, because reportedly at least two teams DID uncover it (AP report, two primary sources needed)
There was an active police investigation. Teams employ former LEOs to research whether there are any police actions against a prospect - maybe not the details, but the fact that there is an open investigation. If the LA times is correct (and they are a paper that confirms primary sources), this was not a cursory investigation. It involved 20 personnel. That's enough people that it seems fairly likely an insider police source would be able to find out an investigation was ongoing and it involved members of the SDSU football team.
There were student reports last fall of a gang rape in an off campus house, involving 5 football players including "Matt", stating that the football team all knew and rumors were spreading throughout the athletic department.
That is the sort of thing that area scouts, student-ish age assistants, and deep background investigators are employed to find out, and in fact per AP, at least two teams (who weren't interested in a punter) did uncover something.
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18 minutes ago, Tiberius said:
It's been about nine months and no charges though they have a girl who suppossidly was covered in blood and bruised. That's strange, I'd say.
They also have a girl who stated her memory of the events was incomplete because she was in and out of consciousness. She couldn't even state definitively whether the bruises on her neck were from strangulation or hickies.
I believe those are hard cases to prosecute, and require that the detectives painstakingly work around the gap in credible victim testimony. I'm not surprised that it's taken this long.
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33 minutes ago, Doc said:
It's an allegation at this point. One that wasn't even followed-up by the SDPD. If Araiza wasn't involved with it, what information did you want him to provide?
Um....how do you know it was not followed up by the SDPD? They sent their investigation to prosecutors August 5th. It sounds comprehensive.
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QuoteMore than 20 investigative personnel worked on the case, resulting in nearly 200 hours of overtime, said police spokesperson Lt. Adam Sharki. Detectives obtained and executed 10 search warrants, interviewed multiple witnesses, examined physical evidence, and reviewed more than three terabytes of digital evidence, he added.
The "more than 3 terabytes of digital evidence" has a rather ominous ring to those involved, given the alleged victim's statement that she saw a light at times, as though someone were videoing or taking pictures.
When cases like this have been successfully prosecuted, it's because the doofuses involved created digital evidence, which police were able to recover and introduce at trial.
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Just now, RunTheBall said:
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned - I bet McD met with the vet leaders of the team to get the temperature of the locker room. I suspect there wasn’t any pressure to stick by a rookie punter which helped with the decision to cut him.
I can't find an interview, but there were some tweets from Micah Hyde which rather implied that he had. I wouldn't be surprised if allowing such a meeting might have been one reason why practice was delayed yesterday, and that perhaps meeting with the team after practice and before the presser was one reason the presser was delayed.
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1 minute ago, SectionC3 said:
I didn't hear it asked as specifically as I framed it. As in, was one of those "double digit teams" a franchise that drafted a punter ahead of Araiza in this year's draft. The point there is that there may be many teams that didn't know of this because they had no interest in drafting a punter. But a few, including two who drafted punters ahead of the Bills, may have been aware of the issue in advance of the draft. So I'd like to know if those two teams knew of this allegation before the draft. Much more material than asking whether, say, the Seahawks (who employ Michael Dickson) were aware of this issue.
A point. You should PM or tweet at one of the Bills Beat reporters. Maybe they can ask Beane that specifically.
Wawrow and another AP writer (they have to have 2 independent primary sources for everything they write) also state that they spoke with 3 teams who didn't know, but two teams who DID - can't be the teams who drafted a punter ahead of Araiza, as it was stated they didn't draft a punter.
I would think the Bills would like to know what was different about their pre-draft process that they uncovered something the Bills and other teams missed.
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9 hours ago, The Red King said:
Araiza was tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion. The Bills organization was under siege from the press about keeping such a monster on the team, even though nothing had been proven. There is no way they could funtion under those circumstances. As such, they didn't have a choice. For their own good they had to cut him, and I agree with the move.
What disgusts me are the people that immediately assumed he's guilty, referring to him as trash and worse, before anything comes to light. I also hate when people who don't want to jump to conclusions are accused of defending him. It's not the same!
What's done is done. The Bills didn't have a choice. Time to move on.
I agree with your disgust towards the immediate assumption of guilt. There have been some tweets and some posts that are hard for me to read assuming guilt.
That said, there's the opposite claque which says his "fundamental rights" are being violated and his life ruined because he's been fired from his job, which is poppycock - no one has a fundamental right to work for a specific employer, or to play in the NFL, and he's got a lot of life in front of him - including, potentially, in the NFL once this gets resolved.
I guess my main thing with Beane's presser where I found it disingenuous (though I guess maybe Beane has to frame it this way for PR and legal reasons) is implying that something factual changed between July 29/30 and yesterday - that they learned more details from the lawsuit, or that they were working hard night and day to "do their own research" and uncover the facts. I don't buy that. The details came out in the 29 July LA Times article and were linked to Matt Araiza the next day by his lawyer's call to the Bills. They are allegations. The lawsuit is still allegations.
I agree with you that the Bills released him because they were under seige, not just from the press, but from social media - but also because reading the allegations laid out in the lawsuit is painful, and it seemed to be causing distress to McDermott and in the locker room. This would inevitably create division and controversy between players who likely hold the same spectrum of opinions we've seen on this board.
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5 hours ago, JerseyBills said:
For the Brand , yes they did.
For the team , heck no. We have no punter with 12 13 days to go on a national stage. We just drafted him.
If social media didn't exist he'd 100% be playing.
Everybody wants to act like they were never 20 years old at a college party and haven't made mistakes
A "mistake" is something like "last night under the booze I hooked up with someone who is not attractive to sober me and is now pursuing me. Dang! How'd I do with that?" or "Dammit I wore my Canada Goose instead of my Thrift Store last night, it's been stolen"
Ripping a girl's piercings out and leaving her bruised and bleeding is something else. Even if Araiza didn't do that himself, if he had a part in setting it up or even in looking the other way while it went on, he's culpable to me. Decent men ####-block rapists, they don't enable them.
All that aside, for the team, I think McDermott and Beane 100% did righto. Part of claiming to build a high-character culture is that they've brought in high-character guys who (judging by Keenum and Barkley, and the whole team's demeanor Fri actually) were appalled by reading that lawsuit. Having Araiza continue on the team, as their brother, in their locker room while this hung over his head and could neither be proven nor disproven was going to be incredibly distracting and divisive - to the team.
If this sort of "energy suck" kept up, it would disadvantage the team far more than missing some boomer punts (at the expense of hang time and directionality) will.
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16 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:
Yeah but her journal directly contradicts her civil suit and claims.
That's not necessarily information the Bills had in July, though (unless the lawyer sent it to them)
16 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:I recommend people watch the press conference because they cover all of this. In fact, they were asked this questions multiple times, and gave thorough answers each time.
I watched the press conference twice, I listened carefully to Beane's answer, and they do not make sense to me. Which is what spurred the post you're responding to.
If it makes sense to you, Great.
16 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:Prior to the civil suit...it was just an accusation which is drastically different than an actual criminal case or civil suit. The Bills at that time, while knowing this is serious, still don't know if it will actually go to a civil suit, are her accusations substantiated by any evidence, is this a jaded ex doing a money grab, or is this player a monster that no one realized. There is a lot that is not known at the stage of just being accused.
The Bills knew when the story broke in the LA times and the lawyer called that it wasn't a "jaded ex doing a money grab"
Unless they gained information they didn't mention, they still don't know if her accusations are substantiated by evidence
What's different, as we both agree, is that there's an actual filed lawsuit which is generating a firestorm of widespread negative publicity
But both with the LA Times story (which gave pretty explicit details)/Lawyer's call and with the civil suit, we're still dealing entirely with allegations in both cases.
So given that, why does Beane's explanations in his presser make sense to you?
It doesn't matter really, it's a done deal and I hope the team can move on and McDermott can go back to being a football coach and no longer look traumatized.
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1 hour ago, Cheektowaga Chad said:
Is the lawyer really coming after the buffalo bills?
Was that his actual goal the whole time?
In his statement the first sentence is aimed at the team
He's a Grandstander playing to the audience.
It's also not impossible that he's pissed at the Bills because they were supposed to put pressure on Araiza to settle before he filed the suit, or at worst after the suit - not cut him. That's my inner cynic talking.
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24 minutes ago, BillsShredder83 said:
the possible perception of mat being innocent to a vague accusation, versus a document discussing a violent 90m gang rape straight out of 'I Spit On Your Grave" are very different, regardless of if they admit to it or not.
all r word is bad, but theres a difference between a - couldnt consent due to an extra drink or two, and the specifics released. these guys are human too, if it affected my sleep last night, it affected theirs much more directly.
I "get" that effect! *shudder*
My point that I made upthread was that a lot of those violent details were published in the LA Times July 29th, with the lawyer for the alleged victim but not the suspects named. Then the lawyer called the Bills and added Matt Araiza's name to the article.
I don't think you need to be terribly imaginative to figure out how that is gonna read in a civil suit.
But maybe they needed the experience of actually reading it in print.
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4 minutes ago, Bangarang said:
The whole it was just an allegation in July but now it’s a civil suit logic BB gave was weird. The civil suit is still just an allegation. The only difference is now it’s public and the world hates your team for employing a guy accused of raping a minor.
I am glad I am not the only one who found that explanation weird and inconsistent.
Agree, the Times article July 29th (which did not name Araiza) and the lawyer's phone call July 30th were allegations.
The civil suit is also an allegation.
The only difference is the firestorm of negative PR
And of course that the entire team can read the lawsuit and quite possibly react in as polarized a fashion as we have on this board.
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35 minutes ago, Ralonzo said:
I would hope that if he's totally exonerated and the Bills approached him to resume his role as punter, that he'd tell them to ***** right off the foot of Ferry. Beane's own statement on the team feed affirmed that for the Bills, "culture is more important than winning." Ok. So I'm going to assume that means, to do the right thing even if it lessens your chance to win. Or even, the whole "Bills are a family" thing. How would a family react to a member accused of something awful, which he claimed he didn't do? Would you toss him on the street? No, you'd find out what really happened, and if he did what he was accused of then deal with it appropriately.
Look, I see what you're getting at, but anyone who believes that any employer is "family" and not a business, which will pursue its business interests first and formost, is highly naive.
I do agree with your take that Beane's statement "culture is more important than winning" seems like BS. This is indeed about reducing distraction and controversy for the team so that it can focus on winning; and where was culture 3+ weeks ago when the LA Times printed details and named the lawyer, then the lawyer called the Bills the next day?
35 minutes ago, Ralonzo said:Hopefully the sleazebag lawyer throwing Beane immediately under the bus after acceding his demands is educational on some level.
?? (Edit: never mind, I found it)
33 minutes ago, BillsShredder83 said:lol wtf is he supposed to say. in GM speak everyone with a pulse can read between the lines. also, dont forget he has to be careful on what he says from a legal standpoint, especially with possible NFLPA possibly involved. imagine hes 100% cleared of this in 6 mos, what might that lawsuit look like? both from a $$ standpoint, and the time/energy it would sap from being a football GM. unlikely, but possibly even a personal liability suit. all unlikely, but stupid risk to be that candid.
IMHO that's what all the delay prior to the presser must have been about - crafting possible responses to possible questions and clearing them with Legal
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Matt Araiza accused of rape, served with a lawsuit.
in Off the Wall
Posted
A specific sum is not named