Bruins hire Paul, Weiss firm to investigate vetting process in Mitchell Miller signing
BOSTON -- Last week, Bruins president Cam Neely addressed the media and stated clearly that the organization failed to properly vet prospect Mitchell Miller before signing him to a contract.
Now, the Bruins appear intent on discovering exactly why that's the case.
The Bruins announced on Tuesday that the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison has been hired to investigate the organization's player-vetting process.
Former U.S. attorney general Loretta Lynch will lead the investigation.
"The Boston Bruins strive every day to live our values and meet the high standards our associates, fans and community have come to expect," the team said in the announcement. "This includes treating everyone inside and outside our organization with dignity and respect. We recently fell short of our high standards and disappointed both ourselves and many in our community. Moving forward, we are committed to ensuring that our values are reflected in everything we do as an organization, including our process for vetting future players."
The Bruins described the process as an "independent review."
"This will help us ensure that our process going forward reflects our core values," the team said. "The Bruins organization will fully cooperate with the independent review team and will publicly disclose the results of the review upon its completion."
The Bruins signed Miller -- who had been convicted in an Ohio juvenile court of bullying a developmentally disabled classmate in middle school -- on Friday, Nov. 4. Just two days later, after outcry from fans and media, the team announced that it would be cutting ties with Miller. The team cited "new information" when announcing that decision, though Neely did not share what that new information was when he spoke to the media.
"For me, we didn't have enough information," Neely said. "We could've dug deeper."
The firm of Paul, Weiss is well-known in the Boston sports market, as firm partner Ted Wells led the DeflateGate investigation in 2015.
