Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer will lend his suspect talents to Jerry Jones for NFL lawsuit
By Blake Yagman
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones hired embattled Weinstein lawyer, David Boies, in an attempt to nullify Roger Goodell’s contract.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told his fellow NFL owners he had hired Harvey Weinstein’s former attorney, David Boies, in preparations for a protracted battle with Roger Goodell. Goodell and Jones have been on bad terms since the Ezekiel Elliott suspension the NFL commissioner’s office levied against the Cowboys running back.
As recently as last month, Roger Goodell’s contract extension seemed like a sure bet. However, as the legal fight over Elliott’s suspension has grown increasingly contentious, Jerry Jones has decided to do everything in his power to keep the NFL’s Board of Directors from offering Goodell a new contract.
Thus, Jones has decided to lawyer up.
What is interesting is the person Jones has chosen to represent him: David Boies.
Until about two days ago, David Boies was a titan in the legal industry. The Yale Law School graduate overcame severe dyslexia to become one of the greatest attorneys in modern American history. Boies’ role in the legal dramas of the last quarter century reads like a Forrest Gump-esque tale of an attorney who was (seemingly) always in the center of the action. Boies represented Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, the Steinbrenner family in their lawsuit against Major League Baseball, the NFL in Brady v. NFL (the 2011 lockout), Microsoft in United States v. Microsoft, and the tobacco industry in three of the largest Big Tobacco class action lawsuits.
But now, his reputation has become significantly more complicated. So, what changed?
On November 6th, the New Yorker published a piece by Ronan Farrow that details Boies role in enabling Harvey Weinstein. In his representation of the embattled film mogul, Boies authorized the use of private investigators to manipulate and coerce Weinstein’s victims. Specifically, Boies hired a firm staffed by former international spies to glean information from Weinstein’s victims in order to prepare for potential lawsuits from the victims.
Per Farrow’s reporting:
"On October 28, 2016, Boies’ law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, wired to [the intelligence service called Black Cube] the first hundred thousand dollars, toward what would ultimately be a six-hundred-thousand-dollar invoice… The law firm and Black Cube signed a contract that month and several others later."
Boies was personally implicated in the staffing of the intelligence company:
"[One contract], dated July 11, 2017, and bearing Boies signature, sates that the project’s ‘primary objectives’ are to ‘provide intelligence which will help [Weinstein] completely stop the publication of a new negative article in a leading NY newspaper."
It is curious that Jerry Jones would hire David Boies after the release of this article — especially since it hasn’t been more than a few days since the article was uncovered. Boies is facing a lot of negative press and criticism from the legal community and Jones stands to receive backlash himself from the hiring of Boies to deal with his situation.
Next: 30 richest players in the NFL
The Ezekiel Elliott suspension drama has officially spiraled out of control.