Report: Former Dolphins Coach Suing Ted Wells For Defamation
BOSTON (CBS) -- As it turns out, "DeflateGate" is not the only NFL-sponsored investigation led by Ted Wells that has the attorney facing some serious public scrutiny.
ESPN's Adam Schefter reported Monday that former Dolphins offensive line coach Jim Turner is filing a lawsuit against Wells for defamation, one that stems from Wells' investigation into "BullyGate," as it came to be known.
Turner was the position coach when Richie Incognito was charged with bullying Jonathan Martin, and the coach remains unemployed. Turner has publicly been extremely critical of Wells' report on the goings-on with the Dolphins.
"Wells is not a good human being, and when I didn't give him the story he wanted he targeted me as part of a problem in Miami," Turner said in May. "He is not an independent investigator. He's not looking at both sides of the situation. He's hired by the NFL, and he's going to print the story that they want printed. ... I was shocked when I saw what [Wells] made from the report in Miami. He made $4 million. So let's just call a spade a spade, OK? If you bring your car to the mechanic and there's nothing wrong with it and you ask him to find some problems, guess what? When he brings it back to you there's going to be some problems. All of a sudden Wells is the enforcer of integrity — he's a lawyer. His profession is based on money and winning. It's not based on the truth."
Turner claimed that much of the testimony he gave to Wells was left out of the final report.
"It was just clear to me when I read the report that Richie Incognito was railroaded, and I was railroaded along with him," Turner stated.
Incognito -- now a member of the Buffalo Bills after essentially being black-listed from the NFL last season -- shared a similar message in a Newsday article published over the weekend.
"[Roger Goodell] has so much power and he hires independent investigators who come in and are obviously not independent. They come in with an agenda and they come in looking to find facts to back up their argument. All the facts are slanted in their favor," Incognito told Newsday. "Ted Wells came in with a mission against me. Ted Wells came in slanted against me and everything in his report was slanted against me. There were some things in there that would have helped my cause that were left out."
According to Schefter, Turner "believes Wells' report on the Dolphins negatively and perhaps permanently affected his ability to land another NFL coaching job."
"This case will call into question whether Wells truly was working as an independent investigator, an issue that has come up in connection to the New England Patriots' Deflategate case as well," Schefter reported.
