Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine (D) sued the Washington Commanders NFL team for the second time in a week on Thursday, accusing team executives of attempting to cheat people out of money using its season ticket program.
The complaint alleges that Pro-Football Inc., which owns the Commanders, withheld security deposits for season tickets and used that money for other purposes rather than refunding them.
“Today’s announcement follows our recent lawsuit against the Commanders, Dan Snyder, NFL, and Roger Goodell, and is yet another example of egregious mismanagement and illegal conduct by Commanders executives who seem determined to lie, cheat, and steal from District residents in as many ways as possible,” said Racine of the new suit.
The civil suit Racine filed last week alleged that the football team lied to D.C. residents about the extent of its knowledge of a “toxic culture of sexual harassment.”
“In D.C., you can’t lie to consumers to enrich yourself and get away with it,” said the outgoing attorney general at the time.
“That’s what this lawsuit is about: standing up for D.C. residents who were deceived and misled.”
The complaint filed this week calls for a court order forcing the Commanders to repay ticket holders and for financial penalties to be imposed on the team for violating D.C.’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA).
“The Commanders’ arrogance and blatant disregard for the law is a slap in the face to District residents who have supported the team for decades,” said Racine.
A spokesperson for the Commanders told the Hill: “The Team has not accepted security deposits for over 20 years in the case of premium tickets and over a decade in the case of suites, and we began returning them to season ticket holders as early as 2004. In 2014, as part of a comprehensive review, Team management was instructed to send notices to over 1,400 customers with deposits and return all security deposits requested.”
“Further, the team engaged an outside law firm and forensic auditors to conduct an extensive review of the team’s accounts which found no evidence that the team intentionally withheld security deposits that should have been returned to customers or that the team improperly converted any unclaimed deposits to revenue.”
The NFL team has been under scrutiny in recent months due to claims of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct, among other criticisms of its leadership.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee launched an investigation into the Commanders last year, a move that was strongly condemned by the team’s owner Dan Snyder, who called a committee hearing in the probe a “politically charged show trial.”
Updated Friday at 8:22 a.m.