Former Washington Football Team employee 'disappointed' with NFL response
WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder has agreed to pay $10 million after an investigation found a "very toxic" environment at the club and a culture of fear and harassment.
Former employees say they’re devastated, disappointed, and livid after Thursday’s announcement about the fine.
Investigator Beth Wilkinson and her team spoke with more than 150 current and former employees--most of them women--before reaching the conclusion that club leadership fostered a hostile work environment replete with harassment, bullying, and fear tactics, and a culture that particularly targeted female employees.
The former employees came forward hoping that speaking to investigators would lead to accountability and real change. Those hopes were dashed yesterday.
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"It's insulting to those of us that were brave enough to come forward. We didn't have to. We didn't know what the consequences would look like," Megan Imbert said.
Megan Imbert first worked for the Washington Football Team as an intern before joining full-time as a producer in the broadcast department.
As first reported by the Washington Post, in the summer of 2008, Imbert walked into an editing bay with an inappropriate image of a cheerleader frozen on the screen--an image she later learned was used for a lewd video reportedly shown to club leadership.
Imbert worries the human component of this story gets lost in the headlines.
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"Lives have been impacted over this. women betrayed. My experience in my department personally knowing that this happened, it kind of puts a very nasty stain on my career there. It's disappointing," she said.
There is no written report detailing Wilkinson's investigation and her findings, which appears uncommon for NFL investigations given that the Ray Rice investigation produced a 96-page report and the ‘Deflategate’ report was a whopping 139 pages.
The NFL's statement said that the $10 million fine will go to charity. FOX 5 asked the NFL which charity the money will go to and whether that means the fine would be tax deductible for Snyder, but we have not yet gotten a response.