NFL Network suspends Marshall Faulk, Ike Taylor, Heath Evans over sexual harassment claims

NFL Network personalities are accused of a wide range of inappropriate behavior. (Bill Feig/AP)

The NFL Network has suspended commentators Marshall Faulk, Ike Taylor and Heath Evans after they were accused of sexual harassment in a wrongful-termination lawsuit brought by a former wardrobe stylist for the network.

Bloomberg’s Jordyn Holman and Scott Soshnick were first to report the story Tuesday night. In the lawsuit, filed against NFL Enterprises, the woman claims Faulk asked her “deeply personal and invasive questions” about her sex life and groped her breasts and behind; that Taylor sent her “sexually inappropriate” pictures of himself along with a video of him masturbating in the shower; and that Evans propositioned her for sex multiple times and also sent the woman nude pictures of himself.

The woman also makes claims against a number of former NFL Network employees and on-air personalities, including former executive producer Eric Weinberger, who left in 2015 to become president of Bill Simmons’s Ringer media group; Eric Davis, who now works for Fox Sports 1; Warren Sapp, who was fired by the network in 2015 after he was caught soliciting a prostitute at the Super Bowl; and Donovan McNabb, who left the network in 2013.

The woman claims Weinberger sent her “several nude pictures of himself and sexually explicit texts” and told her she was “put on earth to pleasure me.” After the story broke Tuesday night, a Ringer spokesman announced that Weinberger had been placed on indefinite leave “until we have a better understanding of what transpired during his time at the NFL, and  we will conduct our own internal investigation.”

Davis, Sapp and McNabb are accused of a wide variety of inappropriate behavior by the woman.

The lawsuit, originally filed in California Superior Court in October but amended with the specific allegations against the employees on Monday, alleges that the woman was fired from her job at the age of 51 in October 2016 after being accused of stealing clothes from an unnamed on-air personality. The woman denies stealing the clothes and says security-camera footage would back up her claim. She also says the network did not return her personal items or reimburse her for the money she spent on clothes for the on-air talent. Plus, the woman claims she was paid less than other people younger than her and that the network discriminated against her because of her age, created a hostile working environment by not doing anything about the sexual harassment and caused her physical and emotional distress.

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