Joe Namath is a legend when it comes to the NFL world but that does not make him immune from possible things he has allegedly done.
The New York Jets legend has been accused of covering up sexual abuse at his football facility, according to a man who claims he was assaulted there.
64-year-old Philip Lyle Smith has alleged in a Brooklyn lawsuit that well-known Brooklyn Poly Prep Country Club football coach Philip Foglietta sexually abused him 51 years ago at a Joe Namath Instructional Football Camp.
Philip Lyle Smith, who filed the lawsuit in 2019 under the name “John Doe,” spoke out publicly to The New York Post to state Foglietta was later revealed to be a serial sexual abuser at the school where he worked and sparked a massive 2012 settlement with several sex abuse victims.
He died in 1998.
Smith accused Namath and others of being “enablers and pedophile protectors.”
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“Back in those days, Joe Namath was my idol,” he told the New York Post. “And he went from my hero to a zero in my life.”
Smith added that in the wake of the abuse, he received opportunities to eat meals with Namath and John Dockery and said Foglietta used the special treatment to justify his sexual abuse.
“Every night he’d say, ‘See what I did? … You have pictures with so and so … Joe talked to you … How you can do that without me?’” Smith told the newspaper. “That was part of his grooming to abuse me.”
Smith’s lawsuit was filed under the Child Victims Act, which has now expired but the law temporarily reopened the statute of limitations to allow alleged victims to file civil lawsuits against companies and individuals.
The Child Victims Act, under which Smith’s complaint was brought, has since expired; however, the statute of limitations has been temporarily extended to let potential victims to bring civil actions against businesses and private parties.
The lawsuit said Foglietta had him sleep in his bed, and camp counselors went as far as to insist that he do it. Foglietta told him that because he was not actually playing in camp, he would have to stay in his room.
The most graphic part of the lawsuit described Foglietta as masturbating in front of him and tried to masturbate him, but he was only 12 years old and “couldn’t achieve an erection.” He added he was shown pornographic magazines at the camp and then the next morning would act as nothing happened. He said he was “violated manually for the first two to three years.”
He is seeking unspecified damages.
