A Cook County Sheriff’s officer who was working off-duty security at a July episode of WWE Monday Night Raw has sued WWE and Montez Ford, whose legal name is Kenneth Crawford, alleging that Crawford performed an unwanted sexualized “lap dance” on him during a live Netflix broadcast and that WWE then promoted the footage on social media.
The moment was part of the Street Profits’ entrance, as Crawford and tag team partner Angelo Dawkins made their way to the ring for a match that night at the Allstate Arena, in Rosemont, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
The security guard, Noel Lucas, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in the Circuit Court of Cook County, alleging 14 counts including assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of the Illinois Gender Violence Act. The named defendants are WWE, Crawford, and the company’s subsidiary Event Services, LLC.
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WWE didn’t immediately respond to a request to provide a statement in response to the lawsuit.
As of Thursday evening, the current version of the July 6 Raw on Netflix doesn’t include the interaction between Crawford and Lucas. The video appears to go to a break early in the Street Profits’ entrance. But the clip of the moment that’s central to the case is easy to find online.
Lucas says Crawford danced toward him without warning and without his consent. The video got hundreds of thousands of views, Lucas says, including on WWE and Crawford’s own social media accounts. As a result of the attention the clip got, the plaintiff says, he became publicly recognizable. The next day, when he reported to work at his full-time job working at a courthouse, he alleges that “members of the public recognized him from the videos of the encounter that had circulated on social media and mocked him, thrusting their hips in his direction, imitating the sexual movements” that Crawford had performed on Raw the previous night.
Lucas adds that his children have also been “mocked and ridiculed” at school because of the video.
Because of that, Lucas’s lawsuit says he’s “suffered humiliation, embarrassment, and emotional distress,” and that he continues to suffer because the video has been widely shared and remains publicly available online. Lucas’s face is readily visible in the clip, so he also complains that WWE and Crawford used his image for commercial purposes, which he alleges violates the Illinois Right of Publicity Act.
“Like so many law enforcement officers, Mr. Lucas works a second job in order to better provide for his children,” Whitney Barr, an attorney for Lucas, said in a press release provided to POST Wrestling.
In addition to his job for the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, Lucas also supervises a team of security guards for the private security firm Monterrey Security, which is how he ended up working security at Raw. According to the legal complaint, Lucas was instructed by a WWE employee to take his position near ringside. His suit describes the moment Crawford approached him during the live Netflix broadcast.
“Defendant Crawford then began performing a sexually provocative dance immediately in front of and over Plaintiff [Lucas], repeatedly thrusting and gyrating his hips and pelvis towards Plaintiff, performing a sexualized ‘lap dance.'”
The filing says Crawford “moved his body increasingly closer to [Lucas]; continued the lap dance.” The suit adds that Crawford’s “left inner thigh repeatedly rubbed against Plaintiff’s leg.”
Lucas is asking the court to award him unspecified monetary damages, punitive damages, his legal costs, and to order that WWE and Crawford can’t use his identity.
A case management hearing is set for December 10.
Lucas is represented by Barr and Alexis Martin of Caffarelli & Martin Ltd.
