The Jets filed an answer to the explosive lawsuit brought by one of their former employees and also filed six counterclaims against her.
Elaine Chen, the team’s former vice president of finance, is suing the Jets, claiming she was unjustly fired in response to sexual harassment allegations against team president Hymie Elhai.
In their response, the Jets allege what they call an “unlawful conspiracy” perpetrated by Chen, her husband Larry Fitzpatrick, who also worked for the Jets, and other former employees.
The Jets filed six counterclaims against Chen, including libel for labeling Elhai a “sexual predator” in her suit and repeating the allegations of sexual harassment against him, which the Jets say they investigated and found to be untrue.
The answer filed by the Jets includes as exhibits purported text messages between Chen, Fitzpatrick, who was the team’s vice president of ticket sales, and an unidentified former employee. The Jets claim the messages show the three discussed the plot that the Jets say was meant to destroy Elhai’s reputation and career.
The Jets also allege they found evidence of inappropriate behavior on Fitzpatrick’s company-issued phone, including pictures of his genitals, interactions with women on adult websites, text messages objectifying women and gambling, which is prohibited by the NFL.
The allegations against Elhai were sent to the Jets in an anonymous email in July, according to the court filing. The Jets claim their investigation discovered it was sent by a former employee, who later
confessed to conspiring with Fitzpatrick to fabricate the allegations against Elhai and to sending the email.
The Jets allege they were tipped off to Fitzpatrick’s involvement because he was one of the recipients of the anonymous email. They claim to have interviewed Fitzpatrick as part of the investigation and he denied seeing the email. When the Jets told him they had a record of him receiving it, he took out his phone and began “furiously tapping the top and bottom of the phone screen,” according to the latest court document. The Jets claim they asked him to turn over his phone after the interview and allegedly found 4,000 recently deleted messages, some relevant to the investigation.
The Jets claim Fitzpatrick’s text messages with the former employee include messages like “I hope this buries him,” allegedly referring to Elhai. In a subsequent interview, the Jets claim Fitzpatrick admitted his role in the email.
Chen denied any role in the conspiracy and alleges the Jets fired her solely because she is married to Fitzpatrick. She also accuses the team of not investigating the claims against Elhai, but rather finding out who sent the email and “targeting anyone who supported the allegations.”
The Jets’ response includes purported text messages between Fitzpatrick and Chen from the day after the email was sent where he allegedly said he was forwarding an email to her on a Yahoo account. According to the text messages filed in court, he asks if she read the email, and she writes back, “Pretty Brilliant.” They also text about a lunch with the former employee the Jets claim wrote the email.
Chen’s attorney, Claudia Reis, was not immediately available for comment. Attempts to reach both Chen and Fitzpatrick were unsuccessful.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
