quote:
Vilma's defamation suit isn't about whether or not he actually put out a bounty or not, it's about whether Goodell had reason to believe he did. Criminall cases regularly use conflicted witnesses that sell out there colleagues for lesser sentences. Their testimony isn't thrown out because it's conflicted, it's often critical to making the case.

What I said is goodell has to prove he had sufficient evidence that allowed him to make the statements he made. thats what will have to be shown here. Vilmas attorney will have to show how bad the evidence is and show that bc of how bad it is goodell should have known his statements are false

I never said the statements would be thrown out. What i said is they won hold much weight in court. As in they wont mean much bc his statement and situation he is in is a conflict of interest. Vilmas attorney will charcterize GW as having a conflict of interest. So his statement in the eyes of the jury will be weak but not thrown out.

The fact that both statements that the nfl has from gw and corr that are conflicting in the order of events looks really bad. and any decent attorney will show the jury why that looks bad. So basically one can assume now that their statements wont hold a lot of weight to show goodell could say what he said. He will need written evidence prove himself.

Oh and this isn't a criminal case what happens there does not follow in this situation

This post was edited on 9/18/12 at 2:50 pm

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by TigerinATL

Member since Feb 2005

61680 posts

Posted on 9/18/12 at 3:07 pm to jeff5891

quote:
He will need written evidence prove himself.

And he will have someone write it

quote:
goodell has to prove he had sufficient evidence that allowed him to make the statements he made.

How are statements from supervisors about a subordinate's actions during a meeting not sufficient? Remember that the players who were accused refused to meet with Goodell and defend themselves. They had their reasons for that, but this appears to be the sequence of events:

1) Cerullo gives the initial story which lines up with the NFL's legal interests and the witch hunt is on. Now all RG needs is a good villain or 2.

2) Saints cooperate fully and turnover all of their emails.

3) FO/Coaching staff are interviewed
- GW squeals like a pig and throws everyone under the bus in the process
- Payton and Loomis may or may not know what went down but they do know they were letting GW do his own thing so they accept responsibility while blaming everything on GW
- Vitt denies things and Goodell decides that he is lying and suspends him for lying.

4) Accused players refuse to meet with Goodell.

So all of Goodell's evidence either corroborates the Vilma bounty, or has been determined to be a lie. The players do not meet with Goodell to refute the accusations and offer their own version of events. At this point Goodell has no reason to doubt his information. Again, the defamation suit isn't about Goodell having to prove that Vilma offered a bounty but Vilma proving that it was unreasonable to assume that he did. Vilma didn't bother defending himself when given the chance and none of his superiors defended him.

I'm no lawyer but short of an email from Goodell proving it was a witch hunt, I don't see how Vilma proves defamation. Goodell had every reason to believe what had been discovered and no obligation to investigate further that I can see. Now if Vilma had met with Goodell and denied the accusations and said every single teammate and a few coaches would back him up and Goodell refused to follow that up and then made the bounty claims he might have a case, but I think Vilma not defending himself gave Goodell the green light to stop the investigation with the limited "evidence" he had.

quote:
Side note: What was Cerullo's role in the Saint's organization? People keep referring to two coaches implicating Vilma but I thought Cerullo was some minor administrative functionary.

He was a "Saints Quality Control Coach"

This post was edited on 9/18/12 at 3:12 pm

2 ...

Report Post

Saints Talk - Replies to Post

Return To Board

Page 1

Return To Board