This post has been updated as of July 29.
A decision by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to affirm a four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady reveals that Brady destroyed evidence that may have explained his role in the scandal known as DeflateGate.
According to Goodell, Brady destroyed a phone that he used throughout the period that covered the AFC Championship Game and the first six weeks of an investigation by the league into a scheme by Brady and two former members of the Patriots equipment staff to lower the air pressure in game balls in violation of the minimum 12.5 pounds per square inch set forth in league rules.
The date of the phone’s destruction coincided with the day on which Brady was interviewed by a team of investigators led by Ted Wells of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison. The NFL hired the firm to conduct an inquiry into the scandal. In the ruling released Tuesday, Goodell writes:
“Mr. Brady explained that when he changes cellphones, he gives his old cellphone to an assistant with the instruction ‘to destroy the phone so that no one can ever, you know, reset it or do something where the information is available to anyone.’ But this conflicts with the fact that the cellphone he had used prior to November 6, 2014 was, in fact, available or [the forensic expert’s] review. Had Mr. Brady followed what he and his attorneys called his ‘ordinary practice,’ one would have expect that the cellphone that he had used prior to November 6, 2014 would have been destroyed long before [the forensic expert] was hired. No explanation was provided for this anomaly.”
Brady used the phone to send or receive nearly 10,000 text messages, the investigation found. “Mr. Brady willfully obstructed the investigation by, among other things, affirmatively arranging for destruction of his cellphone knowing it contained potentially relevant information that had been requested by the investigators,” Goodell concluded.
The NFL’s ability to investigate charges of wrongdoing depends on cooperation, Goodell explained, in part because the league lacks subpoena power. Brady’s lack of cooperation led the commissioner to draw what he termed “an adverse inference” that supports a finding of misconduct.
For his part, Brady disputes the significance of the phone. In a post Wednesday on Facebook, he states:
“I replaced my broken Samsung phone with a new iPhone 6 AFTER my attorneys made it clear to the NFL that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under ANY circumstances. As a member of a union, I was under no obligation to set a new precedent going forward, nor was I made aware at any time during Mr. Wells investigation, that failing to subject my cell phone to investigation would result in ANY discipline.” (emphasis in original)
Brady says he turned over records of his cellphone account and emails that investigators requested, as well as asked the phone company if there were a way to retrieve the text messages from the phone at issue. “There is no ‘smoking gun’ and this controversy is manufactured to distract from the fact they have zero evidence of wrongdoing,” he writes.
