Houston attorney Tony Buzbee has been all over social media during the Deshaun Watson controversy and the 22 lawsuits against the Houston Texans QB.
On Wednesday, the Washington Post dropped an interview with Buzbee that had some very important information.
Per Will Hobson of the Post, five of Buzbee’s clients have spoken to the Houston Police Department regarding Watson’s actions with them during massage sessions.
“Three more of Buzbee’s clients recently spoke to Houston police, Buzbee said Wednesday, bringing the publicly known total of accusers involved with the law enforcement investigation of Watson to five. A spokesman for Houston police declined to comment.”
Buzbee also recalled speaking to Watson’s attorney, Rusty Hardin, and promptly made them an offer.
“Your guy’s got some kind of weird problem … alleged problem,” Buzbee said he told Hardin. “This is already spiraling in a bad direction. … Why don’t we try to resolve this now?”
At that time, Buzbee had only filed three lawsuits and informed Hardin he had another four ready to go.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NFL stories via Google! Follow Us
“And away we go,” Buzbee said when Hardin informed him there would be no settlement.
Hardin has only acknowledged that Watson lives on Instagram and has arranged numerous massages off the popular site. He also said some of the encounters ended with consensual sex acts.
Buzbee said that in his initial conversations with Scott Gaffield, general counsel for Athletes First, it quickly became clear that Watson’s management didn’t take the case seriously.
“I said: ‘Let me tell you how this is going to go down: I’m going to file the case. The press is going to pick it up. It’s going to be a circus. … He’s going to have to hire Rusty Hardin.’ And here we are,” Buzbee said. “This guy was so clueless about how things work.”
Buzbee characterized the quarterback’s management at the firm Athletes First as “arrogant, dismissive jackasses.”
Buzbee said he initially suggested the sides enter in private, confidential mediation, which would be rejected by Gaffield. Buzbee offered to settle the case for $100,000, he said, which Gaffield also rejected.
“We don’t believe that the alleged facts show that Deshaun did anything wrong … but we are nevertheless happy to continue the conversation around a reasonable settlement figure because we believe he can learn a lesson about having put himself in this situation,” Gaffield wrote Feb. 19th.
“He wanted us to bid against ourselves,” Buzbee said. “And I was done.”
Buzbee only mocked Hardin’s press conference trying to defend Watson looking for massages online.
““Rusty and I get along smashingly. … He’s a fighter, he’s smart, and he’s good on his feet. … But I think he’s been dealt a bad hand here,” Buzbee said.
To Hardin’s explanation that Watson turned to Instagram to arrange massages because of the pandemic?
“Because of covid, he was reaching out to dozens of different people on Instagram? For massages? … Because of covid, you would think he would have one person who had tested negative,” Buzbee said.
To Hardin’s argument that any sex acts that occurred in these massages with Watson were consensual?
“So you’ve just told the world who’s watching that your client paid for sex? … My grandma always said: ‘You’re digging yourself a hole already. Stop digging,’” Buzbee said.
“This has gone pretty much the way I thought it would so far, but we’ll see where it goes from here,” he said. “I’m encouraged and optimistic.”
