{"id":284578,"date":"2025-10-07T18:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T18:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/284578\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T18:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T18:51:11","slug":"new-york-jets-say-deleted-texts-show-conspiracy-to-defame-team-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/284578\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Jets say deleted texts show conspiracy to defame team president"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Jets on Tuesday alleged that a former vice president for the team\u00a0who sued the franchise last week<\/a>\u00a0was part of an \u201cunlawful conspiracy\u201d to falsely accuse the team president of sexual harassment to destroy his reputation and career.<\/p>\n

Elaine Chen, the team\u2019s former vice president of finance, alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday that the team fired her because she is married to Larry Fitzpatrick, a former vice president of ticket sales and service for the team. Her lawsuit alleged that Fitzpatrick was fired during the franchise\u2019s investigation into an anonymous email accusing team president Hymie Elhai of sending inappropriate text messages to various women on staff and other misconduct. She alleged that she was later terminated in a case of marital discrimination.<\/p>\n

In a response filed Tuesday, the Jets accused the couple of being part of a conspiracy to fabricate the anonymous email and of deleting evidence and misleading investigators, among other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis litigation arises out of an unlawful conspiracy by Chen, Fitzpatrick, and other former NYJ employees to falsely accuse (Elhai) of sexual harassment solely for the purpose of destroying Elhai\u2019s impeccable reputation and career,\u201d the team said in its response. The team also said the former employees conspired to damage the franchise by \u201cunsettling and undermining its executive management team, and publicly (and falsely) asserting that NYJ condones and encourages sexual harassment and misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

An attorney for Chen was not immediately available for comment. The Athletic was not able to reach Fitzpatrick or Chen directly.<\/p>\n

Elhai has worked in the Jets organization since 2000 and was named the team\u2019s president in 2019. Chen said she did not witness any misconduct by Elhai, of the sort alleged in the email, but heard of it.<\/p>\n

The Jets said in their response that the email in question did not include any specific examples of inappropriate texts or messages. It also did not include the names of any \u201crecipients, the content or substance, the time or manner communicated, or how or why any were \u2018inappropriate.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the Jets said they investigated the claims in the message, the team said a third-party review of the email showed Chen and Fitzpatrick participated in the submission of the email and that the allegations in the email were fabricated by another former employee. That former employee is not named or quoted in the filing. The review allegedly showed Fitzpatrick lied to the team about his role and deleted thousands of messages that \u201cprovided the timeline of the conspiracy and also implicated Chen in the scheme from its inception.\u201d<\/p>\n

The filing includes dozens of text messages allegedly recovered from Fitzpatrick\u2019s phone, which the team said demonstrate Chen\u2019s involvement in sending the anonymous email.<\/p>\n

The Jets also said the third-party investigators uncovered misconduct by Fitzpatrick himself, including sending messages objectifying women to direct reports, violating the NFL\u2019s gambling policy by participating in Super Bowl squares pools and visiting adult-oriented websites on his company phone.<\/p>\n

Those issues and others were the basis for Fitzpatrick\u2019s firing, the team said. Chen, whom the filing depicts as an enthusiastic co-conspirator, was fired for misconduct, including her dishonesty with investigators and her participation in the \u201cscheme,\u201d according to the team. The Jets also said Chen was part of three company-wide reviews of employee conduct since 2023. None of those reviews found any reports of harassment or other wrongdoing by Elhai or any other team employees, the filing said.<\/p>\n

As recompense for Chen\u2019s lawsuit, the Jets are requesting that she pay damages and cover the team\u2019s legal expenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Jets on Tuesday alleged that a former vice president for the team\u00a0who sued the franchise…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":284579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5287,1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-284578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-new-york-jets","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115334393835630401","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}