On Monday night, the Boston Globe reported that former ESPN employee, Adrienne Lawrence, had filed a lawsuit in Connecticut U.S. District Court alleging that she was a victim of sexual discrimination and harassment.
The full suit has been posted on Google Drive.
In the suit, there are numerous allegations outlined, including ones involving current Raw announcer Jonathan Coachman. The following was listed in Sections 125 and 126 of the suit:
On or around January 18, 2016, SportsCenter anchor Jonathan Coachman (“Coachman”) emailed Ms. Lawrence offering to provide her with mentorship and providing his cellphone number. When he contacted her via text, he quickly turned a professional conversation into a personal matter, asking her about her musical interests. He was employing the ESPN predators’ playbook. Colleagues then cautioned Ms. Lawrence that Coachman was notorious for sexually harassing female employees. After learning that, Ms. Lawrence made an effort to communicate to Coachman that she had a boyfriend, after which she did not hear from him again and he made no offers of mentorship.
Coachman’s reputation for making unwelcome sexual advances to ward women and engaging in other sexually harassing behavior was not a secret. Cary Chow had warned Ms. Lawrence about him when he gave the short list of men at ESPN who were notorious for sexual harassment. Coachman had sent Walsh inappropriate photos of himself and text messages, falsely telling her colleagues that they were romantically involved and that she “wanted” him – another common practice of men at ESPN.
On Tuesday morning, Jonathan Coachman vehemently denied these allegations with a series of statements posted on Twitter:
I will address this only once because I am seething today. In 21 years of being a PROFESSIONAL I have never been more offended in my life. I my 9 years I can count on one hand the amount of times I interacted with anyone other than a co-anchor. To allow someone to spread vicious. Lies and flat out fabrications is not ok and it’s time someone stood up for themselves. @jemelehill addressed her lie last night. I am not a part of this lawsuit because I have never done anything wrong. My reputation speaks for itself and anyone that has ever worked with me will back that up. I am also offended that someone can dangerously throw peoples names into something for the clear attempt at getting headlines. This the only time I will address this because I am not a part of this lawsuit. My heart goes out to anyone falsely accused of anything. Trust me it doesn’t feel good. But most of you have been incredible and supportive. Onward and upward.
POST Wrestling reached out to both Coachman the WWE on Monday for a statement or response to the story. The WWE issued us the following statement:
We take these matters very seriously and are investigating.
