This article will be updated.
Deshon Watson, a quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, has reached an agreement with 20 of the 24 women who have filed lawsuits against him for sexual misconduct, attorney Tony Busby said Tuesday morning. In a statement, Busby, who represents Watson’s prosecutors, said the terms and amounts of the agreements were confidential and that the cases would be dropped once they were finalized.
The first public accusation against Watson of sexual misconduct during a massage meeting was made in March 2021, which led to pressure from lawsuits filed by additional women. Busby said Ashley Solis, who filed the original lawsuit, was one of four women who did not settle.
The charges against Watson included massage appointments he had when he played for Houston, Texas. He was sold in Cleveland in March after a grand jury in Harris County, Texas, refused to charge him with criminal charges. Brown gave Watson an unprecedented, fully guaranteed five-year, $ 230 million contract.
But Watson has faced additional pressure in recent weeks as two new women have filed lawsuits against him. Busby also said he plans to add the Texans as a defendant after an investigation by the New York Times revealed that the team provided the location used by Watson for some of the meetings and provided him with a non-disclosure agreement. As of Tuesday, Busby had not added the Texans to the costumes, and it was unclear whether the team was a country in the villages. The Texans did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The agreements come as the NFL considers discipline for Watson as part of its personal conduct policy. League investigators interviewed Watson for four days last month, which is usually one of the last steps in the process. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the agreements “did not affect the collectively agreed disciplinary process.”
Busby called Ashley Solis “one of the heroes of this story.” In his lawsuit, Solis said that Watson deliberately touched her with his naked and erect penis during a massage session in March 2020. Watson admitted in testimony that Solis had become “tearful” and after she left, he apologize through text that he feels “uncomfortable.” Solis turned to industry colleagues as well as lawyers for advice on how to react to what happened, and in December 2020 she was linked to Buzbee’s law firm.
“Without Ashley Solis, the behavior of these women would probably continue indefinitely,” Busby said in a statement. He added that he looked forward to hearing from the cases of Solis and the three other women who had not settled “in time”.
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