Four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk’s top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off all USAID payments using the department’s own ultra-sensitive payment processing system.
The ask was so out of line with how Treasury normally operates, it prompted a skeptical reply from David Lebryk, then serving as acting Treasury secretary, who said he did not believe “we have the legal authority to stop an authorized payment certified by an agency,” according to a source familiar with the exchange.
Lebryk suggested a “legally less risky approach” would be for the State Department, which oversees USAID, to rescind the payments itself and examine whether they complied with President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order freezing foreign development aid.
Tom Krause, a former tech executive and now the top DOGE staffer at Treasury, responded that Lebryk could have legal risk himself should he choose not to comply.
This back and forth over email, described to CNN by a source familiar with it, reveals the first known indication that Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency emissaries sought to use Treasury’s tools to block some payments, fulfilling the president’s political agenda.
The ensuing controversy set off a chain reaction around Washington this week, sparking a tense political debate and emergency court proceedings over DOGE’s access to the system and the administration’s potential interest in using it to turn off payments as it chooses.
The email exchange marked a direct collision between political appointees loyal to Musk and career civil servants at the Treasury Department.
Last Friday, Lebryk announced his sudden departure from government service, ending his more than 35-year career at Treasury.
Democratic senators on Capitol Hill have demanded answers, while unions and protesters voiced fears about Musk’s potential incursion into Americans’ private data.
The controversy has also drawn attention to a previously obscure office inside Treasury called the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which processes more than a billion payments totaling more than a $5 trillion a year.
The payment system reliably distributes Americans’ tax returns, Social Security benefits, disability payments and federal employees’ salaries. It has historically been off-limits to political appointees but Musk and his allies appear bent on breaking that precedent. In fact, Krause and his top deputy traveled to Kansas City to visit the federal office that operates the payment systems for the BFS, an ask they made prior to Trump’s inauguration that was denied by career Treasury officials at the time.
The critical, if largely unknown, BFS payment system is just one of the government nerve centers across Washington that, in less than three weeks, Musk and his DOGE teams have sought to disrupt or gain access to, including those responsible for the federal government’s work force, real estate portfolio, computer systems, and records management, just to name a few.
“People underestimate how badly, and quickly, things could go if someone starts messing with things with multiple systems underpinned by technology that isn’t native to any engineer, no matter how brilliant,” said one former BFS career official.
In a letter to lawmakers, the Treasury Department said the access to the payment system granted to Krause and a deputy was restricted to “read-only” with the payments systems. Trump’s newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent delivered the same message in a private meeting with House Republicans on Monday.
But that level of access is dramatically different than what Krause and his DOGE associates had pressed Lebryk to grant in the email exchange — and came amid conflicting reports about whether the scope was more expansive than it was being conveyed.
“The hole here is what happened between the initial ask and Bessent’s sign-off,” said one source with knowledge of the events that led up to the email exchange. “Either the DOGE aspirations for what they wanted dramatically changed or the limitations they insist were placed on them aren’t the whole story.”
In an interview with Bloomberg TV Thursday, Bessent said there has been no “tinkering” with the payments system and that DOGE representatives have “read-only” access to the payments system.
Bessent also defended the work of DOGE personnel detailed to Treasury, saying they are “these are highly trained professionals. This is not some roving band running around doing things. This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings.”
None of the people at Treasury on the emails responded to inquiries from CNN this week.
There have been questions about how far Trump and Musk believe they can go in cutting back spending across the federal government, with Musk in recent days commenting gleefully about shutting down payments.
The emails also highlight how forceful the group from DOGE has been in sketching out a way to use the Treasury Department to control grant funding Trump and Musk oppose, especially from USAID toward developing foreign nations.
Any decision to turn off some payments via Treasury’s systems, especially to align with Trump’s political wishes, would be an unprecedented fiscal decision and pose a direct threat to Congress’ power of the purse by giving the president more control over which payments to make, or not.
That wasn’t the Trump delegates’ approach, however.
In a lengthy email late January 24, Daniel Katz, the chief of staff to Bessent, first wrote that the department should shut off outgoing USAID payments so the State Department could then assess if aid to foreign health care systems complied with Trump’s directives, according to the source familiar with the messages.
Katz wrote that “potentially problematic payments” out of line with the president’s orders should be paused en masse by the department.
Still, Katz was clear the new administration believed Treasury could make its own decisions.
A division of USAID that delivered money to health care systems in developing nations had already put in place a process to shut off some payments, Katz wrote, and the administration “would like to replicate” that at Treasury.
“What we would like to do is, to the extent permitted by law, temporarily pause the automatic processing of payment files,” from a USAID division called Health Systems Strengthening, Katz wrote.
Katz also wrote that Krause, Musk’s deputy at Treasury, should be given access to the payments system so he and his team could take action.
Some of the administration’s plan, Katz added, included immediately pausing all payment files still in the queue and letting Krause and others look at individual payments certified by USAID for the health care systems. The State Department could then look closer at the payments through USAID, Katz added.
The Health Systems Strengthening program at USAID has primarily funneled money into countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, as well as Indonesia, the Philippines, Guatemala and Haiti. The funds were aimed at building the countries’ health systems so they could improve care to prevent infants and mothers from dying in childbirth, control the spread of HIV and AIDS and other infectious diseases, among other projects.
In one project touted on the now-archived USAID website, the division funded an emergency room in Jordan.
Its distributions are now in a 90-day pause because of Trump’s executive order.
After Katz’s initial message two weeks ago, Lebryk was explicit that the Treasury Department shouldn’t do what DOGE proposed.
“There are also practical and personal liability issues that may come into play,” Lebryk wrote, copying a lawyer from the Treasury Department’s general counsel’s office.
But Krause, the special hire from DOGE sent to Treasury, was undeterred. “I would also recommend you consider an equal alternative liability,” he wrote to Lebryk.
“I believe we can all feel more comfortable that we hold payment at least to review the underlying payment requests from USAID now so that we can be given time to consult State,” Krause wrote, ending a middle-of-night email on Saturday, according to the source.
Frustrated with Katz and Krause’s messages, Lebryk left the department the following week, shortly after the confirmation of now-Secretary Bessent.
Initially, Bessent didn’t give Krause and DOGE any limitation on its access to the system, which Lebryk opposed, according to a source familiar with the exchange.
Yet before the weekend was over, the Treasury Department told senators in Capitol Hill that the access Krause and others had to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service systems was “read-only.”
A lawyer from the Justice Department representing Treasury reaffirmed that in court this week, telling a federal judge on Wednesday the civil litigators believed the DOGE affiliates at Treasury — Krause and one underling, Marko Elez, a Musk employee in his mid-20s — didn’t have the ability to make changes to the Treasury payments system.
The lawyers were still nailing down information about the access DOGE had to the system, however, the attorney, Brad Humphreys of DOJ’s civil division, told the judge in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.
By Wednesday night, the Trump administration had agreed only the two DOGE affiliates at Treasury, Krause and Elez, could have access to the payment system, outside of its traditional access within the department.
The court also could order that Krause’s and Elez’s access is “read only,” the Justice Department agreed.
The Kansas City BFS office provides payment services for more than 250 federal agencies and is the conduit for an extraordinary swath of critical individual payments including tax refunds, social security benefits, veterans pay, pension and education benefits.
While the payment system may not be the most well-known piece of federal infrastructure, its centrality to the operations of the US government and the lives of millions of Americans is unparalleled. It’s also among the most secure.
Access to the agency’s Secure Payment System, or SPS, is closely held and authorized only for individuals who “have a need to know the information in order to perform their official Fiscal Service duties,” according to a 2021 government privacy and civil liberties assessment of the payments infrastructure. The system maintains an audit log of all users and additional security capabilities that allow monitoring, identification and ability to locate users.
That’s all fed what have been weeks of growing concern over the Musk team’s intention: Privacy issues given the reams of personal data that flow the system. National security issues related to contracting and federal employee payments. There are also conflict of interest concerns given Musk’s own companies have received billions in government contracts in an exceedingly competitive space across multiple agencies.
“The idea that ‘read-only’… is supposed to make people feel better is not shared by people who’ve worked there or understand how the systems actually work,” the former BFS career official said.
There is little margin for error when it comes to how the US pays its own bills, something that will become an even higher stakes task as Congress and the White House circle another battle over raising the debt limit.
This story has been updated with new reporting
In a shocking new development, emails have revealed that associates of Elon Musk sought to use a critical Treasury payment system to shut down USAID spending. The emails, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that Musk’s associates were actively working to disrupt the flow of funds to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a key government agency responsible for providing humanitarian assistance and development aid around the world.
The emails show that Musk’s associates were particularly concerned about USAID’s spending on renewable energy projects, which they viewed as a threat to Musk’s own business interests in the energy sector. In one email, a member of Musk’s team wrote that they were “exploring options to disrupt USAID’s funding mechanisms” in order to “protect our market share and ensure that our technologies remain competitive.”
The revelation has sparked outrage among lawmakers and government officials, who have called for a full investigation into Musk’s ties to USAID and the potential misuse of government resources for personal gain. Critics have also raised concerns about the influence that wealthy individuals like Musk have over government agencies and the potential for abuse of power.
As the story continues to unfold, it remains to be seen what consequences Musk and his associates may face for their actions. Stay tuned for updates on this developing story.
NEW ORLEANS — As New Orleans church leaders braced for the fallout from publishing a list of predatory Catholic priests, they turned to an unlikely ally: the front office of the city’s NFL franchise.
What followed was a monthslong, crisis-communications blitz orchestrated by the New Orleans Saints‘ president and other top team officials, according to hundreds of internal emails obtained by The Associated Press.
The records, which the Saints and church had long sought to keep out of public view, reveal team executives played a more extensive role than previously known in a public relations campaign to mitigate fallout from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The emails shed new light on the Saints’ foray into a fraught topic far from the gridiron, a behind-the-scenes effort driven by the team’s devoutly Catholic owner who has long enjoyed a close relationship with the city’s embattled archbishop.
They also showed how various New Orleans institutions — from a sitting federal judge to the local media — rallied around church leaders at a critical moment.
Among the key moments, as revealed in the Saints’ own emails:
• Saints executives were so involved in the church’s damage control that a team spokesman briefed his boss on a 2018 call with the city’s top prosecutor hours before the church released a list of clergymen accused of abuse. The call, the spokesman said, “allowed us to take certain people off” the list.
• Team officials were among the first people outside the church to view that list, a carefully curated, yet undercounted roster of suspected pedophiles. The disclosure of those names invited civil claims against the church and drew attention from federal and state law enforcement.
• The team’s president, Dennis Lauscha, drafted more than a dozen questions that Archbishop Gregory Aymond should be prepared to answer as he faced reporters.
• The Saints’ senior vice president of communications, Greg Bensel, provided fly-on-the-wall updates to Lauscha about local media interviews, suggesting church and team leaders were all on the same team. “He is doing well,” Bensel wrote as the archbishop told reporters the church was committed to addressing the crisis. “That is our message,” Bensel added, “that we will not stop here today.”
The emails obtained by AP sharply undercut assurances the Saints gave fans about the public relations guidance five years ago when they asserted they had provided only “minimal” assistance to the church. The team went to court to keep its internal emails secret.
“This is disgusting,” said state Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans. “As a New Orleans resident, taxpayer and Catholic, it doesn’t make any sense to me why the Saints would go to these lengths to protect grown men who raped children. All of them should have been just as horrified at the allegations.”
The Saints told the AP last week that the partnership is a thing of the past. The emails cover a yearlong period ending in July 2019, when they were subpoenaed by attorneys for victims of a priest later charged with raping an 8-year-old boy.
In a lengthy statement, the team criticized the media for using “leaked emails for the purpose of misconstruing a well-intended effort.”
“No member of the Saints organization condones or wants to cover up the abuse that occurred in the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” the team said. “That abuse occurred is a terrible fact.”
The team’s response did little to quell the anger of survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
“We felt betrayed by the organization,” said Kevin Bourgeois, a former Saints season-ticket holder who was abused by a priest in the 1980s. “It forces me to question what other secrets are being withheld. I’m angry, hurt and retraumatized again.”
Emails reveal extent of help
After the AP first reported on the alliance in early 2020, Saints owner Gayle Benson denied that anyone “associated with our organizations made recommendations or had input” on the list of pedophile priests.
The Saints reiterated that denial in its statement Saturday, saying no Saints employees “had any responsibility for adding or removing any names from that list.” The team said that no employees offered “any input, suggestions or opinions as to who should be included or omitted from” the list.
Leon Cannizzaro, the district attorney at the time, denied last week any role in shaping the credibly accused clergy list, echoing statements he made in 2020. He told AP he “absolutely had no involvement in removing any names from any list.” Cannizzaro said he did not know why the Saints’ spokesman would have reported he had been on a call related to the list.
The emails, sent from Saints accounts, don’t specify which clergymen were removed from the list or why. They raise fresh questions, however, about the Saints’ role in a scandal that has taken on much larger legal and financial stakes since the team waded into it, potentially in violation of the NFL’s policy against conduct “detrimental to the league.”
A coalescing of New Orleans institutions
The outsized role of Saints executives could draw new attention from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who is scheduled to address reporters Monday as New Orleans prepares to host its 11th Super Bowl. Messages requesting comment were sent to the NFL.
Taken together, the emails portray a coalescing of several New Orleans institutions. U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey, who was copied by the Saints on the public relations efforts, cheered Bensel on from his personal email account, thanking the team’s spokesman “for the wonderful advice.” A newspaper editor similarly thanked Bensel for getting involved.
“You have hit all the points,” Zainey, a fellow Catholic, wrote in another email to Bensel, praising a lengthy note the Saints spokesman sent to local newspaper editors. “By his example and leadership, Archbishop Aymond, our shepherd, will continue to lead our Church in the right direction — helping us to learn and to rebuild from the mistakes of the past.”
Zainey later struck down a Louisiana law, vigorously opposed by the church, that would have allowed victims to bring civil claims irrespective of how long ago the alleged sex abuse took place. He declined to comment.
A watershed moment for the Catholic Church
The list marked a watershed in heavily Catholic New Orleans — a long-awaited mea culpa to parishioners intended to usher in healing and local accountability. It came at a time when church leaders were seeking to retain public trust — and financial support — as they reckoned with generations of abuse and mounting litigation that eventually drove the Archdiocese of New Orleans into bankruptcy.
That litigation, filed in 2020, involves more than 600 people who say they were abused by clergy. The case has produced a trove of still-secret church records said to document years of abuse claims and a pattern of church leaders transferring clergy without reporting their crimes to law enforcement.
While it has since expanded, the list of accused priests was missing a number of clergy when it was originally released, an earlier AP investigation found.
The AP identified 20 clergymen who had been accused in lawsuits or charged by law enforcement with child sexual abuse who were inexplicably omitted from the New Orleans list — including two who were charged and convicted of crimes.
Still, the list has served as a road map for both the FBI and Louisiana State Police, which launched sweeping investigations into New Orleans church leaders’ shielding of predatory priests.
Last spring, state police carried out a wide-ranging search warrant at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seizing records that include communications with the Vatican.
Since the Saints began assisting the archdiocese, at least seven current and former members of the local clergy have been charged with crimes ranging from rape to possession of child pornography.
Public relations campaign
The extent of the abuse remained largely unknown in 2018, a year the Saints won nine consecutive games on the way to an NFC Championship appearance. As the church prepped for a media onslaught, Bensel carried out an aggressive public relations campaign in which he called in favors, prepared talking points and leaned on long-time media contacts to support the church through a “soon-to-be-messy” time.
Far from freelancing, Bensel had the Saints’ backing and blessing through what he called a “Galileo moment,” suggesting Aymond would be a trailblazer in releasing a credibly accused clergy list at a critical time for the church. In emails to editorial boards, he warned “casting a critical eye” on the archbishop “is neither beneficial nor right.”
He urged the city’s newspapers to “work with” the church, reminding them the Saints and New Orleans Pelicans — the city’s NBA team, also owned by Benson — had been successful thanks, in part, to their support.
“We did this because we had buy-in from YOU,” Bensel wrote to the editors of The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate, “supporting our mission to be the best, to make New Orleans and everything within her bounds the best.”
“We are sitting on that opportunity now with the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” he added. “We need to tell the story of how this Archbishop is leading us out of this mess.”
Close relationship between Saints and the Catholic Church
Benson and Aymond, the archbishop, have been confidants for years. It was the archbishop who introduced Benson to her late husband, Tom Benson, who died in 2018, leaving his widow in control of New Orleans’ NFL and NBA franchises.
The Bensons’ foundation has given tens of millions of dollars to the archdiocese and other Catholic causes. Along the way, Aymond has flown on the owner’s private jet and become almost a part of the team, frequently celebrating pregame Masses.
When the clergy abuse allegations came to a head, Bensel, the Saints’ spokesman, worked his contacts in the local media to help shape the story. He had friendly email exchanges with a Times-Picayune columnist who praised the archbishop for releasing the clergy list. He also asked the newspaper’s leadership to keep their communications “confidential, not for publication nor to share with others.”
His emails revealed that The Advocate — after Aymond privately complained to the publisher — removed a notice from one online article that had called for clergy abuse victims to reach out.
Kevin Hall, president and publisher of Georges Media, which owns the newspaper, said the publication welcomes engagement from community leaders but that outreach “does not dilute our journalistic standards or keep us from pursuing the truth.”
“No one gets preferential treatment in our coverage of the news,” he said in a statement. “Over the past six years, we have consistently published in-depth stories highlighting the ongoing serious issues surrounding the archdiocese sex abuse crisis, as well as investigative reports on this matter by WWL-TV and by The Associated Press.”
It was The Advocate’s reporting that prompted Bensel to help the church, the emails show. He first offered to “chat crisis communications” with church leaders after the newspaper exposed a scandal involving a disgraced deacon, George Brignac, who remained a lay minister even after the archdiocese settled claims he had raped an 8-year-old altar boy.
“We have been through enough at Saints to be a help or sounding board,” Bensel wrote, “but I don’t want to overstep!”
In a recent development in the ongoing sexual abuse scandal within the New Orleans Archdiocese, emails have surfaced detailing the extent of the Saints’ assistance to the church in handling the allegations.
The emails, obtained through a public records request, show that the Saints worked closely with the archdiocese to help manage the fallout from the scandal. The team’s senior vice president of communications, Greg Bensel, offered to “help in any way” and even suggested bringing in outside PR help to handle the crisis.
The emails also reveal that the Saints were heavily involved in crafting public statements for the archdiocese, with Bensel providing edits and suggestions on multiple drafts. In one email, he wrote, “We are in this together… I know we will pull through this as a team.”
The extent of the Saints’ involvement in the scandal has raised questions about the team’s role in aiding an institution accused of covering up abuse. Some critics have called for transparency from the team and have questioned the ethics of their support for the archdiocese.
As more details continue to emerge, it remains to be seen how the Saints will address their involvement in the scandal and what implications it may have for the team moving forward. Stay tuned for updates on this developing story.
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New Orleans Saints involvement in Archdiocese scandal
High-level executives with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints football team and the NBA’s Pelicans basketball team had a deeper role than previously known in connection with a list of priests and deacons faced with credible allegations of child molestation while the clergymen worked with their city’s Roman Catholic archdiocese, the Guardian and reporting partner WWL Louisiana can reveal.
According to highly sensitive emails that were obtained by the outlets, one top executive even described a conversation with the New Orleans district attorney at the time that allowed them to remove clergy names from the list – though the clubs deny their official participated in that discussion, and the prosecutor back then vehemently denies he would ever have weighed in on the list’s content.
The emails call into question prior and newly issued statements by New Orleans’ two major professional sports franchises as they denied being overly entwined in the archdiocese’s most damning affairs – while fighting to keep their communications with the church out of public view.
After first seeing the so-called Saints emails in 2019 through a subpoena, abuse survivors’ attorneys alleged that the two franchises’ top officials had a significant hand in trying to minimize what was then a public-relations nightmare for the city’s archdiocese – but has since triggered a full-blown child sex-trafficking investigation aimed at the church by law enforcement.
The initial allegations about the emails led to local and national media investigations, including by Sports Illustrated and the Associated Press, that highlighted a fierce closeness between the sports franchises and the Catholic church in New Orleans.
Perhaps the strongest manifestation of that closeness was New Orleans archbishop Gregory Aymond’s serving as a signing witness on the testamentary will that positioned Gayle Benson to inherit ownership of the Saints and Pelicans from her late billionaire husband, Tom. The will also gave key positions in Tom Benson’s estate to the teams’ president, Dennis Lauscha, and top spokesperson, Greg Bensel.
The Saints’ proximity to the church spurred protests by clergy-abuse survivors in front of the team’s headquarters and at the offices of one of the oldest Catholic archdioceses in the US.
Members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests outside the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans training facility in Metairie, Louisiana, in 2020. Photograph: Matthew Hinton/AP
Yet what remained hidden until now are more than 300 emails, amounting to more than 700 pages, many emblazoned with the NFL and NBA logos, showing that the teams’ officials were more involved with some of the church’s operations than they ever admitted. They expose how extensively the sports teams’ leaders intervened in their local church’s most unyielding scandal.
In the most blatant example of that, Bensel – the teams’ vice-president for communications – wrote an email to Lauscha on 1 November 2018, the day before the clergy-abuse list was released. Using common abbreviations for “conference call” and “with”, Bensel wrote: “Had a cc w [New Orleans’ then district attorney] Leon Cannizzaro last night that allowed us to take certain people off the list.”
But the teams said in a 2020 statement: “No one associated with our organizations made recommendations or had input on the individual names of those disclosed on the list.”
On Saturday, the team also said: “No Saints employee had any responsibility for adding or removing any names from that list or any supplemental list. Nor did any Saints employee offer any input, suggestions or opinions as to who should be included or omitted from any such lists. Any suggestion that any Saints employee had any role in removing anyone from the archdiocese’s published lists of credibly-accused clergy is categorically false.”
Meanwhile, when WWL Louisiana and the Associated Press asked him separately in 2020 if he had any input on the contents of the list, Cannizzaro – a self-described pious, practicing Catholic – denied it.
“No,” Cannizzaro told WWL when asked that question. “We simply requested information from them. We requested documents from them, and they provided us documents of people that they believe were responsible for abuse.”
Through an email from a spokesperson, Cannizzaro said to an Associated Press reporter that “he was not consulted about the composition of the archdiocese’s ‘credibly accused’ list nor did he or anyone from [his] office have input into its assembly”.
Thank you Greg … I am certain [Archbishop Aymond] will appreciate it
Gayle Benson in a reply to an offer by Greg Bensel to help Aymond with ‘crisis communications’
More recently, the Guardian obtained a typed phone message left for Cannizzaro at his office showing the archdiocese contacted him for comment requesting follow up “on conversation you had with Archbishop Aymond”. The date left on the message was 29 October 2018, four days before Aymond released the clergy-abuse list.
Cannizzaro, for his part, said he isn’t sure he has ever met Bensel and “did not at any time ask the archdiocese or tell the Saints to tell the archdiocese … ‘remove this name from the list’.”
“I would not have done that,” said Cannizzaro, who is now the chief of the criminal cases division at the Louisiana state attorney general’s office. “That’s just not something I would have done.”
Another revelation in the emails: the sports franchises took the initiative to protect Aymond’s flagging reputation in the summer of 2018 without his asking for that, before the archbishop announced plans to release the names of dozens of abusive clergymen.
Bensel sent an email in July of that year to Gayle Benson asking her to let him help Aymond with “crisis communications”. Benson – who counts Aymond as one of her best personal friends – replied to Bensel that same day: “Thank you Greg … I am certain he will appreciate it.”
The pair exchanged those emails the day after a damaging story about a deacon who had repeatedly faced criminal charges of child sexual abuse being allowed to read at masses – triggering one of multiple scandals in 2018 which pressured the church into releasing a list of credibly accused clergymen as a gesture of conciliation and transparency.
New Orleans Pelicans and Saints owner Gayle Benson next to the teams’ senior vice-president of communications, Greg Bensel, in New Orleans in 2022. Photograph: Matthew Hinton/AP
Benson claimed in 2020 that Bensel only got involved in the local church’s messaging after being “asked if he would help the archdiocese prepare for the media relative to the release of clergy names involved in the abuse scandal”.
On Saturday, an attorney for the Saints said Bensel did so in part at the suggestion of New Orleans-based federal judge Jay Zainey, a devout Catholic – who, according to the emails and time stamps from them, would have had to make that entreaty offline before the article on the abusive deacon was published or very shortly thereafter. Zainey has previously publicly acknowledged making such a suggestion, though he declined further comment on Saturday.
The team’s attorneys on Saturday also said “other local civic leaders” asked Bensel to assist the archdiocese, though the lawyers did not say exactly when those requests were made.
On Saturday, as they have done before, the Saints said Bensel’s role was limited to “public relations assistance provided to the archdiocese of New Orleans … in anticipation of press interest in the publication of a list of clergy who were credibly accused of abuse” on 2 November 2018.
Bensel himself at one point wrote in the emails that he was presenting himself “not as the communications person for the Saints/Pelicans but as a parent, New Orleanian and member of the Catholic Church” – as well as a personal friend of Aymond. And the Saints on Saturday emphasized that “no compensation from the archdiocese was expected or received in return for Mr Bensel’s assistance”.
But Bensel communicated directly with local media about their coverage of the clergy-abuse crisis using his Saints.NFL.com email address, bearing a signature line displaying two of the most recognizable logos in sports: the NFL’s shield and the NBA’s silhouette of a dribbling ball player. Lauscha and Benson used their Saints.NFL.com email addresses throughout the communications, too.
And the emails also show Benson, Lauscha and Bensel continued to coordinate with the archdiocese on how to respond to news stories about the clergy-abuse crisis or other topics involving the organizations’ leaders for at least eight more months beyond the list’s release.
On 21 June 2019, Bensel sent an email complaining that he did not “get paid enough” because he had to prepare the archbishop for an upcoming interview with New Orleans’ Advocate newspaper about clergy-abuse lawsuits and their effect on the church’s coffers. The regular email exchanges between team officials and the archdiocese ended only in July 2019, after a subpoena for the communications was issued to the Saints and the NFL by attorneys for clergy-abuse survivors who had detected evidence of them while pressing a lawsuit for damages on behalf of a victim.
With the backing of various allies – including Benson, Zainey and future federal judge Wendy Vitter, then the archdiocese’s general counsel – the Saints and Pelicans officials used their influence to lean heavily on prominent figures in the local media establishment, pushing for them to soften their news coverage of Aymond, the emails show.
Casting a critical eye on [Aymond] is neither beneficial nor right
Greg Bensel in a July 2018 letter to editors at the Times-Picayune and the Advocate newspapers
Bensel also sought to convince media outlets to limit their scrutiny of a list that turned out to be so incomplete it eventually precipitated a joint federal and state law enforcement investigation into whether the archdiocese spent decades operating a child sex-trafficking ring whose crimes were illegally covered up.
“Casting a critical eye on [Aymond] is neither beneficial nor right,” Bensel wrote in a July 2018 letter to editors at the Times-Picayune and the Advocate, the two daily New Orleans newspapers in existence back then.
A year later, when an Advocate reporter emailed Bensel seeking a comment from the Saints and Pelicans about the subpoena issued to them and their powerful leagues, Bensel quickly forwarded it directly to the owner of that newspaper, John Georges, after unsuccessfully, and sarcastically, suggesting the journalist ask Georges for comment instead.
The Saints’ officials statement on Saturday did not answer questions about Bensel’s remark to the reporter or his overture to Georges.
The statement from the team’s lawyer said “no member of the Saints organization condones or wants to cover up the abuse that occurred in the archdiocese of New Orleans”.
Separately, a statement from the Advocate and the Times-Picayune – which Georges has since acquired – said: “No one gets preferential treatment in our coverage of the news. Over the past six years, we have consistently published in-depth stories highlighting the ongoing serious issues surrounding the archdiocese sex abuse crisis, as well as investigative reports on this matter by WWL [Louisiana] and by the Associated Press.”
Some of those WWL Louisiana reports the newspaper ran were produced in partnership with the Guardian.
The newspapers’ statement said: “As the largest local media company in Louisiana, we often hear from community leaders, and we welcome that engagement, but it does not dilute our journalistic standards or keep us from pursuing the truth.”
A statement from the archdiocese on Saturday echoed the Saints and Cannizzaro in saying “no one from the [team] or the New Orleans district attorney’s office had any role in compiling the [credibly accused] list or had any say in adding or removing anyone from the list”. It also characterized Bensel’s role from 2018 to 2019 as assisting “with media relations”, for which neither he nor the archdiocese were provided compensation.
‘Dark days’
The emails – obtained by the Guardian, WWL Louisiana, the Associated Press and the New York Times – came after Aymond tied his archdiocese to the lucrative sports teams owned by Benson in a way rarely, if ever, seen in the world of sports.
A famously devout Catholic, prominent church donor and philanthropist who recently won an NFL humanitarian award, Benson inherited the Saints and Pelicans after her husband, Tom Benson, died at age 90 in March 2018. He bought the Saints in 1985 and the Pelicans in 2012. He threatened to move the Saints after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005 but was convinced to stay.
Tom Benson then became a hero and symbol of the city’s recovery from Katrina in 2010, when the Saints won their first – and so far only – Super Bowl title, igniting one of the region’s most ebullient celebrations ever.
In Tom Benson’s final years, his children and grandchildren from a previous marriage squared off with Gayle, his third wife, over who would inherit control of his teams and other businesses. Lauscha and Bensel were widely seen to have aligned themselves with Gayle in a struggle that she won. And the succession plan that Tom Benson settled on in her benefit was laid out in a will.
It left Gayle Benson in control of the sports teams and made Lauscha executor of Tom’s estate. And in the event Lauscha ever became unwilling or unable to fulfill his duties, they essentially would be split among two others of those most trusted by the Bensons: longtime Saints general manager Mickey Loomis – and Bensel.
One of two witnesses to sign that will was Aymond.
Gayle Benson walks to receive the casket of her husband, Tom Benson, with Archbishop Gregory Aymond in New Orleans in 2018. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP
And four months after the will took effect upon Benson’s death, a newspaper article about a local deacon and alleged serial child molester thrust Aymond into the center of the global Catholic church’s clergy-abuse scandal.
Published by the Advocate, the article questioned how the deacon, George Brignac, had been allowed to keep reading scripture at masses despite his removal from public ministry 20 years earlier. Church officials had removed Brignac from ministry in 1988 after he’d been arrested multiple times on child molestation charges. The article also reported that the archdiocese had paid $550,000 to settle civil legal claims with a survivor of Brignac’s abuse who would later pursue a criminal case against him, though the clergyman would die before he could face trial.
Subsequent reporting by WWL Louisiana and an Advocate journalist now at the Guardian found that the church had quietly paid at least 15 other victims of Brignac a total of roughly $3m to settle their civil damages over their abuse at the deacon’s hands. Those payments were among nearly $12m in abuse-related settlements that the archdiocese doled out during a 10-year period beginning in 2010.
Aymond immediately faced public backlash, with critics saying he had failed to live up to the promises of zero tolerance for clerical child molesters made by bishops across the US after a clergy-abuse and cover-up scandal had enveloped Boston’s Catholic archdiocese in 2002. He sought to limit the fallout by claiming that he was unaware that subordinates of his had brought Brignac back into a role that he insisted was largely inconsequential.
But later investigations by the Associated Press, WWL Louisiana and the Advocate showed Brignac had also been cleared to meet with – and present lessons to – children at a church school.
The Brignac revelations, however, were not the last of Aymond and the church’s problems. A grand jury report issued in Pennsylvania in August 2018 established that Catholic clergy abuse in that state had been more widespread than the public ever previously realized. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick – a former archbishop of Washington DC – resigned amid allegations of child molestation as well as other sexual abuse, though he would later be deemed incompetent to stand trial due to dementia.
And, in September 2018, the Advocate published a bombshell article about clergy abuse which implicated New Orleans’ Jesuit high school, the revered Catholic college preparatory from which both Lauscha and Bensel graduated.
The article outlined how the high school quietly paid settlements to people who claimed that priests or other school employees sexually abused them as children. The school faced some of the same criticisms lobbed at Aymond after Brignac’s exposure. Jesuit high school’s leader at the time defended the institution by condemning the cases in question as a “disgusting” chapter in the school’s history – but one that was left far in its past.
Bensel later wrote in an email to the school’s president that he was on Benson’s boat with Aymond when the story about Brignac came out – and the archbishop “was very troubled”.
“These are dark days,” Bensel continued.
The day after the Brignac story broke, Bensel wrote to Benson: “The issues that the Archbishop has to deal with that never involve him,” on top of a link to – and an attached copy of – the Advocate article about the molester deacon authored by a reporter now at the Associated Press.
The Saint Louis cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans, and the city’s archbishop, Gregory Aymond. Composite: Angelica Alzona/Guardian Design; Photos via Getty Images/AP
Benson wrote back suggesting that she had seen the article already. She said she had even spoken to Aymond about it “last week”, several days before its publication. “Archbishop is very upset,” Benson told Bensel. “A mess.”
Bensel told Benson he was available to Aymond if the archbishop “ever wants to chat crisis communications”.
“We have been through enough at [the] Saints to be a help or sounding board,” Bensel said, about six years after he guided the team through the infamous so-called Bountygate scandal that – among other consequences – resulted in the club’s coach at the time being suspended for an entire season. “But I don’t want to overstep!”
Benson replied: “Thank you Greg, I will pass this on to him. I am certain he will appreciate it. Many thanks.”
An August 2018 email that Benson sent to the Saints’ governmental liaison made clear how bad she felt for Aymond after the Brignac revelations. “Very sad he is going through this,” Benson wrote while sharing a separate letter by Aymond apologizing “for any wrongdoing by the church or its leadership”. The archbishop had issued the attached missive to a local chapter of a Catholic group called the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, which traces its origins to the First Crusade in the 11th century.
Though Jesuit high school’s president back then, Christopher Fronk, later told a Sports Illustrated reporter now at the New York Times, “I never heard from the Saints on this issue” of church abuse, the emails show that he, too, was contacted by Bensel – just two days after his campus community was rocked by the September 2018 Advocate clergy molestation article.
“Speaking from personal experience after 23 years with the Saints, when the media and the public attack you at your core, it takes the resolve and focus of people like yourself to lead us to clarity,” Bensel wrote. “The church needs leaders like you and I just wanted to reach out and say you have the support of myself, Dennis and Mrs Benson.
“If I can offer any counsel on any issue, I am here for you.”
Fronk, who left Jesuit high school in early 2020, replied: “Thanks for your email. I appreciate it. The last couple of days have been long, and I have more ahead of me. I am relying on prayers and support from others. And I may be taking you up on your wise counsel.”
‘Work with him’
Most of the Saints’ communications about clergy abuse focused on Aymond’s handling of the issue. And the strategy that the archbishop ultimately settled on was one implemented in other US dioceses. He would release a list of priests and deacons who served in New Orleans over the years and had been the subject of credible child molestation accusations.
Aymond later told WWL Louisiana that he had contemplated such a maneuver a year before deciding to do so. And he claimed he would have reached that decision without the various local and national scandals consuming the Catholic church at the time, though he acknowledged they created pressure for him to act.
Whatever the case, Bensel recommended “transparency” – a wholehearted effort to come clean about the past abuses and apologize for them. And with the list’s release being announced weeks ahead of time, the church would come to count on Bensel to get local media outlets to focus more on hailing Aymond for taking such a courageous step rather than analyzing the roster’s thoroughness.
The campaign to set the media’s agenda began in earnest on 17 October 2018, when Bensel wrote to higher-ups at the Advocate as well as the Times-Picayune. He revealed to them that he had been “confidentially discussing the recent horrible issues that [Aymond] and the church are facing”. He also referred to chatting offline with the Advocate and Times-Picayune brass earlier that morning.
I am asking that YOU as the most influential newspaper in our state, please get behind [Archbishop Aymond] and work with him
Greg Bensel to higher-ups at the Advocate and the Times-Picayune newspapers
In his email to the newspapers, Bensel disclosed Aymond’s plan to out clergymen who “sadly betrayed their role and authority to minister to our children, the elderly and the sick”. And, though he anticipated the gesture would not “simply end all of the past and current suffering and questions”, he wrote that he had an urgent request for the outlets.
“I am asking that YOU as the most influential newspaper in our state, please get behind him and work with him,” Bensel said, in part. “We need to tell the story of how this Archbishop is leading us out of this mess. Casting a critical eye on him is neither beneficial nor right.”
He said the news media had helped the Saints maintain their footing in the NFL despite being in one of the league’s smallest markets. And he promised that Aymond would have an open-door policy, saying he is “accountable, available and wants to [e]ffect positive change”.
“We need your support moving forward as we go through this soon-to-be messy time as we work toward much, much brighter days ahead,” Bensel said. “Help us tell this story.”
The archbishop would later abandon that open-door policy. For years, Aymond has consistently declined interview requests from reporters at WWL Louisiana and the Guardian who have questioned his handling of the clergy-abuse crisis. He used the word “Satan” when referring to one of those journalists, the former Advocate staff member, in a text message to a third party that was obtained by the writer.
Bensel provided copies of the letters to the newspapers to Benson and Zainey, a sitting, locally based federal judge. The judge – a Jesuit high school alum who has served on the governing board of the New Orleans archdiocese-run college that educates prospective priests – replied: “Thanks very much Greg. You have hit all the points. By his example and leadership, Archbishop Aymond, our shepherd, will continue to lead our church in the right direction – helping us to learn and to rebuild from the mistakes of the past.”
Benson, too, praised Bensel’s tone: “Great letter Greg … spot on! Thank you very much.”
While it’s not clear when the paper first planned it, that same day the Times-Picayune published a column about the upcoming clergy-abuser list headlined: “Archbishop Aymond is doing the right thing.”
A day later, Bensel wrote to the columnist, saying: “very good column on Archbishop Aymond”.
Bensel then sent the column – along with the comments left under it by online users – to recipients including Aymond, Vitter (then still the archdiocese’s attorney) and Zainey. He said the comments – including one questioning “how come the church gets to decide who is ‘credibly accused’ and who is not”–were a valuable insight into the public’s psyche. And Bensel urged them not to “delve or hang on to the negative ones, [but] learn from them”.
Praying for the Saints victory. Very grateful for your help
Archbishop Aymond to Greg Bensel
The emails show how Bensel dedicated some of the following days to preparing Aymond for a meeting with editors of the Advocate, even while he was in Baltimore for a Saints game.
“Praying for the Saints victory. Very grateful for your help,” Aymond wrote to Bensel at the time.
Referring to the Advocate, Bensel urged Aymond to remember “they need you and you need them”. He said the goal of the gathering with the newspaper’s leadership should be to foster “a better relationship” and drive home how the church is providing “the best measures for a safe environment for our children”.
Bensel suggested that the archbishop “not mention … that the general perception is that the ADVOCATE IS UNFAIR to the Archdiocese of New Orleans”. He also promised to “make time” to converse with Aymond about his advice despite being in and out of meetings.
“POSITIVE POSITIVE POSITIVE,” Bensel wrote to Aymond. “INCLUSIVE ACCESSIBILITY ACCOUNTABILITY MOVING FORWARD.”
Benson, Zainey and Vitter – who is married to a former Republican US senator and had already been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Donald Trump in 2018 and was confirmed to the post the following year – were among those sent copies of correspondence about that meeting. “Excellent!” Benson remarked. “Many thanks!”
Zainey, who later publicly said he could not be sure whether he had ever been sent copies of any of the Saints emails, replied: “Thanks for the wonderful advice. The Arch[bishop]’s sincerity will open their minds and hearts.”
(Zainey later recused himself from any rulings directly involving the archdiocese. But then he went on to rule in a case involving a Catholic religious order that a 2021 Louisiana law enabling clergy-abuse survivors to seek damages over decades-old child molestation was unconstitutional. The state supreme court subsequently upheld the law’s constitutionality, effectively negating Zainey’s ruling.)
After Aymond’s conversation with the newspaper, and after checking in with “a few folks” at the outlet, Bensel emailed Vitter, Aymond and the archdiocese’s in-house spokesperson, Sarah McDonald, saying that “the Advocate editorial meeting was fruitful, positive and I believe will have a lasting impact”. He said: “Great job by you all.”
Yet Aymond would soon become incensed with the Advocate, which late that October published a roster of 16 clergymen who seemed to fit the criteria of the archbishop’s upcoming list based on publicly available news stories and court documents.
Aymond wrote that the piece caught him off-guard, and he was particularly upset with how the newspaper’s website had asked clergy-abuse victims to contact the outlet to tell their stories rather than direct them to the archdiocese “to allow a proper investigation”.
“I want to work with you, but we must both be transparent,” Aymond said. “Will people believe we are working together?”
Upon being provided a copy of Aymond’s missive to the newspaper, Bensel quickly replied: “This is a GREAT response.”
Emails show that the newspaper replied by saying it contacted McDonald prior to the publication of the report. The Advocate said it didn’t believe its editors’ earlier conversation with Aymond prevented it “from continuing … reporting”.
Nonetheless, the Advocate informed Aymond that it had taken offline the request for victims to contact the newspaper, saying it was a “last minute addition” by a digital editor.
Bensel later wrote to Aymond: “An excellent response from them.”
‘Allowed us to take certain people off the list’
The emails show that – 10 days before the documents were released – Aymond provided Bensel an early draft of a letter that the archbishop issued to churchgoers alongside his clergy-abuser list. Bensel replied with suggested changes in handwriting.
A notable one: The draft had made it a point to say most of the accusations involved in the list “go back 30, 40, 50 or more years”. Bensel suggested stronger language, asserting that those accusations went back “decades – 30, 40, 50 and even 70 years ago”.
The final letter evidently adopted that suggestion, reading: “Most of the accusations are from incidents that occurred decades ago, even as long as 70 years ago.”
At last, Aymond’s clergy-abuser list came out the day after Catholics observed the Feast of All Saints and New Orleans’ NFL team celebrated the 52nd anniversary of its founding.
Had a cc w Leon Cannizzaro last night that allowed us to take certain people off the [clergy-abuser] list
Greg Bensel to Dennis Lauscha, using common abbreviations for “conference call” and “with”, and referring to New Orleans’ district attorney at the time
The list – initially containing 57 names – was provided to media outlets that morning under an embargo, which prevents organizations from publishing information that was supplied to them prior to a specific time. And about three hours before that embargo expired, Lauscha emailed Bensel and asked: “Do you see any shockers on the list? Did your SJ you discussed yesterday make the list? The former Loyola president is the biggest shock to me.”
Bensel’s quick reply did not address to whom “SJ” refers, though the letters are the initials of the Jesuit religious order’s formal name, the Society of Jesus. It also doesn’t comment on Bernard Knoth, a former president of the Jesuits’ Loyola University New Orleans, who was included on the clergy-abuser list.
The Saints attorney’s statement on Saturday said Lauscha was referring to a clergyman “rumored to have been accused of abuse [and] was expected to be on the list”.
Dennis Lauscha. Photograph: WWLTV
“It is Mr Lauscha’s understanding that the clergyman to whom he referred in his query to Mr Bensel was included on the list on a supplemental list,” the statement said.
Regardless, back in early November 2018, Bensel’s reply read: “Had a cc w Leon Cannizzaro last night that allowed us to take certain people off the list.
“This list will get updated, and that is our message that we will not stop here today.”
The Guardian asked Cannizzaro about a 29 October 2018 typed message informing him of a call from Vitter. Vitter was “following up on conversation you had with Archbishop Aymond”, said the message left for Cannizzaro just four days before the list’s release.
“If I was in a conversation with him, I would’ve been looking for any records he would have had relative to complaints made against priests so we could reach out to those victims to see if there was a prosecutable case,” Cannizzaro said.
Meanwhile, Cannizzaro has denied a conversation with Bensel or any of his colleagues ever took place, including recently when he said in an interview: “I was not on any conference call with anybody from the Saints about this.
“I do not ever remember having a conversation with the Saints about any case going on with our office” at that specific time.
The Saints lawyer’s statement on Saturday also said that no one from the team spoke with Cannizzaro. Instead, Bensel’s email to Lauscha referred “to a conversation that he was told had occurred between a member of the staff of the archdiocese and … Cannizzaro, concerning the list”.
“Mr Bensel has no firsthand knowledge of what was said by anyone during the conversation or in any communication between the archdiocese and the district attorney’s office,” said the Saints lawyer’s statement. “The … email refers to Mr Bensel’s understanding that the list would be updated by the archdiocese.
“It was also Mr Bensel’s understanding that one purpose the archdiocese had in consulting with [Cannizzaro’s] office was to determine whether disclosure of any member of the clergy under consideration for inclusion on the list would interfere with a criminal investigation. Neither Mr Bensel nor any member of the Saints organization was involved in the determinations made by the archdiocese.”
‘A strong and faithful message’
On the day of the list’s release, McDonald had also asked Bensel to join Aymond as the archbishop gave interviews to local media outlets that they could not publish prior to the expiration of the embargo imposed on the document. “The archbishop would appreciate you being there for the Advocate especially,” McDonald wrote to Bensel.
“I have blocked out the entire morning,” Bensel replied. “I will see you there.”
In advance of those embargoed interviews, Lauscha sent Bensel 13 tough questions that Aymond should be prepared to answer. Lauscha suggested deflecting if asked about the number of listed credibly accused clergymen by answering, “One abuse is too many.”
“Excellent,” Bensel replied to Lauscha, before forwarding the questions to McDonald as well as Vitter.
The Saints’ statement on Saturday said: “The questions that Mr Lauscha suggested were intended to encourage openness and transparency.”
Bensel attended the Advocate’s and WWL Louisiana’s separate embargoed interviews with Aymond. In the conversation with the Advocate, Aymond did remark: “One incident is too many.”
Bensel remained silent during the interviews with both outlets. However, at some point later that morning, he emailed a Saints employee who had previously worked for the publisher of the Advocate.
“I want [the Advocate publisher] to write a positive opinion about how this archbishop has handled the transparency of releasing these names and his diligence in making this right,” Bensel wrote to the Saints employee. “Will call to discuss.”
There is no indication in the emails that the conversation Bensel sought took place. But the Advocate did publish an opinion column concluding with the words: “Transparency about grave wrongdoing, however painful, is the best way to help victims, serve parishioners, and support the work of the many church clerics who have brought joy, rather than suffering, to the people they promised to serve.”
I hope the Picayune would show [Archbishop Aymond] … some support in an editorial
Greg Bensel to the Times-Picayune opinion editor
Bensel also wrote to the Times-Picayune’s opinion editor, saying: “Today the Archbishop met face to face with all of the media – he sent a strong and faithful message!
“I hope the Picayune would show him – the man – some support in an editorial – our community listens and values [what] you all have to say!!”
The Times-Picayune’s next couple of print editions did not contain such an editorial. But as part of its news coverage about the list, the newspaper did publish a letter in its entirety by Christopher Fronk, Jesuit high school’s then president, that expressed support for Aymond’s release of the document, which contained the names of several abusive priests who had worked at Jesuit high school. Fronk’s letter hailed the disclosure as having been carried out in “a spirit of reconciliation and transparency”.
Once the list’s embargo expired, Aymond granted his only live, on-air interview that day to radio talkshow host Newell Normand, a former sheriff of a suburban New Orleans area – at Bensel’s urging.
Normand’s employer, WWL Radio, has long held the exclusive rights to the Saints’ local broadcasts. And Bensel brokered the conversation between Normand and Aymond through emails involving the director of the radio station, which – despite its call letters – is not affiliated with WWL Louisiana, the TV channel.
McDonald, the archdiocese spokesperson, sent Bensel eight questions to “share with Newell to cover” two days before the interview. Bensel replied to McDonald, copied Normand as well as the host’s station director, and told the radio outlet’s employees: “These questions are a great framework for Newell.”
“Love my Di,” Bensel wrote to the station director, referring to her by a nickname, after the organizations all agreed to the interview. She responded: “Love you too, GB.”
Normand later asked Aymond at least four of the eight proposed questions in a fashion that was substantially similar – though not necessarily verbatim – to what the church suggested. The rest, Aymond answered unprompted.
The suggested questions covered how law enforcement had been provided with a copy of the list; what emotions Aymond was experiencing that day; how the roster “is accurate” but may expand; and that adequate measures were in place for the archdiocese to protect children. Aymond said on the program that the number of priests on the list was relatively small given how many clergymen there had been in the archdiocese over the years, but that even that low tally was too much.
As an example of the talking points, Aymond’s spokesperson suggested that Normand ask her boss, “What has this process been like for you?” After Bensel passed the questions along, Normand asked the archbishop, “I know your heart is broken over this – in going through this. How has this process been for you?”
The suggestions from the church included: “There were earlier media reports that said the list may not be complete, but this is an extensive list going back very far. It seems comprehensive. (ask for response).”
Normand didn’t ask Aymond that on the air. But according to a transcript, after the interview ended, the host remarked, “I know some folks say that they already believe that there are some names that have not been revealed yet, and [Aymond] has said that that is actually a possibility.”
Normand, who has repeatedly criticized the church’s handling of the abuse crisis on air, did raise several issues with the archbishop that weren’t outlined by the archdiocese through Bensel. For example, he asked Aymond why the church didn’t inform law enforcement about allegations of abuse earlier. He also raised concerns about priests harassing other clergy. And he spoke about his own journey as a Catholic to accept that child molestation by priests was rampant.
A statement on Saturday from the corporation that owns WWL Radio, Audacy, said: “WWL stands by its coverage of this story. We have no additional comment.”
‘I don’t get paid enough’
The volume of communications between the Saints and the church lessened after the release of the list, according to the emails. But the two sides still stayed in close contact for many more months.
Between February and March of 2019, mere weeks after the Saints nearly clinched what would have been a second Super Bowl berth, the organizations communicated about a request from Aymond for Benson to submit to the Advocate a flattering letter to the editor. The letter’s purpose was to exalt the archdiocese and charitable programs it has led or participated in.
Make as many edits as you see fit
Greg Bensel to New Orleans church officials regarding a letter to the Advocate newspaper
For help on crafting the letter, the emails show that Bensel brought in some of the Saints’ media relations staffers who ordinarily facilitate sports journalists’ interviews with the team’s players and coaches. (One successfully suggested naming three Saints players who have been first-team All-Pro selections while touting their and Benson’s work with certain social or charitable programs, including an archdiocese-affiliated food bank to which she donated $3.5m in 2019.)
Bensel gave the archdiocese the opportunity to review a draft of what he called “a very robust letter of support from Mrs Benson”, saying: “Make as many edits as you see fit.”
He eventually distributed what he said Benson’s teams “came up with in conjunction with the archdiocese” among the Saints’ general counsel, their governmental liaison and Lauscha, according to the emails.
“Do any of you see an issue with this???” Bensel wrote.
General counsel Vicky Neumeyer replied: “I have to chime in that I don’t really like it. I don’t want [Benson] to appear to be a puppet for the archdiocese because we have way too many constituents from all walks of life.”
Bensel wrote back to Neumeyer that he would come chat with her. She later sent an email saying she spoke with Lauscha and that all she meant to communicate was the letter “should be more personal and less stone-cold facts”.
The New Orleans Saints and Pelicans training and practice facility at the Ochsner sports performance center in Metairie, Louisiana. Photograph: Kirby Lee/Getty Images
After Bensel submitted it in her name, Benson’s letter to the editor appeared in the Advocate. Part of the letter addressed the local church’s work combating sex trafficking and advocating for children’s online safety, about five years before state police began investigating allegations that the archdiocese had allegedly sexually trafficked minors.
“Many issues in our society are very difficult to talk about, such as pornography, online safety for children, drug abuse and sex trafficking,” the letter said. It also asserted that “the local Catholic Church is addressing these issues head-on”.
The Saints’ statement on Saturday said that the letter was not “misleading” and did not excuse “the misconduct of members of the clergy”.
Soon thereafter, for an Advocate story on the first anniversary of Tom Benson’s death, Bensel, McDonald and Aymond exchanged emails about the archbishop providing a statement praising Gayle’s support of the church in the first year of her Saints and Pelicans ownership. Gayle Benson and Bensel were given the chance to review and approve the statement, which read: “Mrs Benson is a woman of deep faith, and she puts her faith into action.”
This is what we plan to send once we know you guys are good with this
Greg Bensel comment to New Orleans archdiocese about a statement from team owner Gayle Benson
Bensel, Benson, Lauscha, McDonald and Aymond all then communicated about an article that the Times-Picayune – which would be acquired by the Advocate weeks later – was preparing for Easter chronicling the early aftermath of the clergy-abuse list’s release. Benson had been asked for comment about how she perceived Aymond to have navigated that period. She gave Bensel permission to draft her statement – but to call Aymond “for his approval” prior to releasing it.
Bensel then prepared a quote, sent it to McDonald, copied Aymond and said: “This is what we plan to send once we know you guys are good with this.”
The published quote from Benson that Aymond signed off on read: “My personal relationship with the archbishop aside, I believe he has shown tremendous leadership and guidance through this very tough time. In my opinion, he has dealt with this very sad issue head on, with great resolve and determination to do the right thing and to do it as fully transparent as he is allowed.”
Bensel then emailed Benson, Lauscha and Aymond a link to that Times-Picayune article once it was published. “Thank you, Greg,” Benson wrote back to Bensel.
As late as June 2019, Bensel was still helping the archdiocese with its crisis communications, preparing Aymond for an interview with the Advocate about the effect of the clergy-abuse scandal in general on church finances. “I don’t get paid enough – Helping the Archbishop prep for his 9 am meeting,” he wrote in an email to his ex-wife, after Aymond copied him on to a chain of communications about the upcoming interview.
A subpoena would put an end to the Saints and the church’s email correspondence about a month later.
‘We are proud’
The Saints and archdiocese’s decision to coordinate their messaging created a headache for the organizations after it became clear that Aymond’s list had raised more questions than it answered. Numerous clergy molestation survivors came forward complaining that their abusers were omitted from the list, even in cases in which the church said it believed their allegations and had paid them substantial financial settlements.
The list did not provide the number of accusations against each clergyman or say exactly when they worked at the local churches to which they were assigned. That concerned the clergy-abuse survivor community, who worried the paucity of information might be an impediment for unreported victims contemplating coming forward.
It also concerned Cannizzaro’s top assistant district attorney, Graymond Martin, who responded to receiving the list by drafting a request on 8 November 2018 for more information, including basics such as any details indicating “where the alleged acts occurred, … when each act … occurred and some description of each of the alleged acts”.
Martin sent that draft to a subordinate. But it is unclear whether the request was formally sent to the archdiocese.
In his radio interview with Normand, Aymond emphasized that the archdiocese would be reporting complaints against living clergy to law enforcement. Bensel’s email indicated he consulted with Martin’s boss, Cannizzaro, about the list before its release. But Martin’s email noted that the DA’s office still had not received “copies of any documentation … of these complaints and the results of any inquiry conducted by the Archdiocese”.
Cannizzaro filed charges of child rape against one person on the list: George Brignac, in connection with the allegations at the center of the $550,000 settlement paid to one of his victims in July 2018. But Brignac, 85, died in 2020 while awaiting trial on charges that dated back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, sparing the church a courtroom spectacle.
The church did not catch the same break nearly five years later, after Cannizzaro’s successor as DA, Jason Williams, intervened in civil lawsuits and subpoenaed secret documents from the archdiocese to pursue child rape charges against a local priest named Lawrence Hecker.
Hecker’s name had not been disclosed until the list came out, even though he had been removed from ministry in 2002 because he was a suspected abuser. A survivor then accused Hecker of raping him when he was an underage Catholic high school student in 1975 – a crime that until then had not been disclosed to authorities and had no deadline before which prosecutors had to file charges.
The prosecution of Hecker kicked into high gear in the summer of 2023, when the Guardian and WWL Louisiana began publishing a series of reports on a written confession from the priest to his church superiors in 1999 that he had sexually molested or harassed several children during his career. The outlets also got Hecker to confess to being a serial child molester on camera and showed how the church took steps to deliberately hide the extent of his abusive history for decades beforehand.
Ultimately, Williams’ office charged Hecker with the former student’s 1975 assault. He pleaded guilty in December of last year at age 93 to child rape and other crimes, and he died in prison less than a week after receiving a mandatory life sentence.
Meanwhile, evidence turned up by Hecker’s prosecution prompted the state police investigator who built the case against him to swear under oath that he had probable cause to suspect the archdiocese ran a child sex-trafficking ring responsible for the “widespread … abuse of minors dating back decades”. That abuse was concealed from authorities beyond just Hecker’s case, and an investigation into the matter that could generate criminal charges against the clerical molesters’ protectors was ongoing, the sworn statement said.
Though Hecker and Brignac were on the initial version of the list, it eventually grew from 57 names to about 80.
A number of the additions came only after news media reported on conspicuous omissions, including two – Robert Cooper and Brian Highfill – added after WWL Louisiana and an Advocate reporter now at the Guardian questioned the archdiocese about them. Two other additions involved clergymen who also pleaded guilty – albeit in suburban New Orleans communities – to sexually molesting children, either before or after their ordination.
The deluge of claims eventually drove the archdiocese to file for bankruptcy protection in the spring of 2020.
That proceeding – which remained ongoing as of the publication of this report – led to more than 500 abuse claims against more than 300 clergymen, religious brothers and sisters, and lay staffers. The archdiocese does not consider most of those as being credibly accused, saying it only has the authority to include clergymen – priests and deacons – on its sanctioned list. And it could cost the archdiocese hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to clergy-abuse victims to settle the bankruptcy, if the church even manages to do so successfully.
Saturday’s statement from the Saints’ lawyer said Benson would not donate money to the archdiocese for it to settle with clergy molestation survivors.
“That abuse occurred is a terrible fact,” the statement continued. “As a member of the Catholic faith, Mrs Benson will continue to support the church and the great things it does. Her support is unwavering, but she has no intention of donating funds to the archdiocese to pay for settlements with abuse victims, and she has not done so.”
As all the disparate cases leading to the church bankruptcy made spectacular headlines, the Saints emails remained hidden for years. And the reasons for that are complex.
The communications had been produced as evidence in an unresolved civil lawsuit involving allegations against Brignac – the deacon who had been charged with sex crimes multiple times since the 1970s but had been reading at masses as recently as the summer of 2018.
In July 2019, the attorneys for that pending lawsuit’s plaintiff – who have also represented victims of Hecker – raised eyebrows by issuing a subpoena for copies of all communications among Saints and archdiocesan officials. The attorneys wrote in an accompanying court filing that the subpoena was necessary because the case’s discovery process turned up emails as well as other evidence establishing that Bensel was advising the archdiocese on how to navigate its clergy-abuse crisis.
News media outlets almost immediately began trying to access and report on the emails. Bensel was not pleased with their interest. Beside asking Lauscha over email to call his cellphone, he told an Advocate reporter seeking comment on the subpoena to instead ask his newspaper’s owner, John Georges. Bensel then said his organization had nothing to say on the subpoena, echoing an email to him from Lauscha which read: “As with any legal matter, we have no comment.”
The last of the “Saints emails” shows that Bensel forwarded the reporter’s request for comment to Georges. There is no indication in the emails that Georges responded.
In short order, WWL Louisiana, the now-combined Times-Picayune/Advocate newspaper and two other local television stations joined the Associated Press in suing for access to the emails. The media argued that the missives were a matter of public interest. Attorneys for the Saints argued that its correspondence with the church should remain private – while also maintaining that they had merely provided public relations advice to the archdiocese and had done nothing to be ashamed of.
Archbishop Gregory Aymond and Gayle Benson during Fat Tuesday celebrations in 2020 in New Orleans. Photograph: Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
They explicitly denied having had “a hand in determining which names should or should not have been included on the pedophile list”, as the attorneys who obtained the subpoena put it.
“We are proud of the role we played and yes, in hindsight, we would help again to assist the archdiocese in its ability to publish the list with the hope of taking this step to heal the community,” Benson wrote in a statement. “I want to be clear … that I am not going to be deterred in helping people in need, whether a friend seeking advice or a stranger in need, it does not matter, our list is long.”
In what seemed to be directed at news organizations whose businesses depend to some extent on credentialed access to – or advertising and broadcasting rights from – the Saints and Pelicans, the statement also said: “I hope that is not lost on the same people that write such articles when they too come asking for help or support.”
On Saturday, the Saints’ statement said Benson was “proud of her executive team and supports them”.
“While the public relations assistance offered to the archdiocese has come under scrutiny, Mrs Benson and her team remain steadfast in bringing our community together and continuing to help the good people of our community,” the Saints’ statement said.
Nonetheless, the New Orleans archdiocese opted to move on from relying on Bensel after the July 2019 subpoena. It later retained a crisis communications consultant from a local firm at a cost of $10,000 monthly, public court filings have shown.
The media’s efforts to secure the Saints emails hit a significant snag when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the local court system beginning in March 2020.
Then, on 1 May 2020, the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy. The move automatically and indefinitely halted litigation pending against the archdiocese.
The state court judge overseeing the case that produced the Saints emails never determined whether or not the emails were confidential.
As part of the bankruptcy proceedings, there were confidentiality orders applied to various archdiocesan documents. One of the primary justifications for such orders was to protect the identities of clergy-abuse victims.
In the correspondence between the Saints and the church that the Guardian and WWL Louisiana reviewed, no clergy-abuse victims are identified.
Nonetheless, the Saints lawyer’s statement on Saturday alleged that the emails were “leaked to the press in violation of a court order”. The statement also complained that the team was confronted with those communications as New Orleans prepared to host the Super Bowl showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles on 9 February.
“The team and the entire city are committed to hosting the greatest Super Bowl week and game ever,” the team’s statement said.
Ultimately, journalists managed to obtain and expose the emails.
One of those journalists was the first to expose Brignac before joining the Associated Press. Another investigated the Saints’ connection to Aymond in Sports Illustrated before joining the New York Times. And two contributed significantly to efforts to bring Hecker to justice at WWL Louisiana and the Guardian.
In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453 or visit their website for more resources and to report child abuse or DM for help. For adult survivors of child abuse, help is available at ascasupport.org. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International
In a recent scandal involving clergy abuse in New Orleans, emails have surfaced showing how the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans helped a local church spin the crisis through strategic communications. The emails reveal that the sports teams offered guidance on handling the situation and even provided resources for public relations efforts.
The scandal, which involved allegations of sexual abuse by clergy members at St. John the Baptist Church, rocked the community and raised concerns about transparency and accountability within the church. In the emails, representatives from the Saints and Pelicans can be seen advising the church on how to navigate the media scrutiny and manage public perception.
While some may question the involvement of sports teams in a religious scandal, others argue that their expertise in crisis communications and public relations can be invaluable in times of crisis. The emails show that the teams helped the church craft messages that emphasized accountability, transparency, and a commitment to justice for the victims.
Overall, the emails shed light on the complex dynamics at play in crisis communications and how different organizations can come together to support one another in times of need. As the New Orleans clergy abuse scandal continues to unfold, it remains to be seen how the church, sports teams, and community will move forward in addressing the issues at hand.
Tags:
Crisis communications, NFL Saints, NBA Pelicans, New Orleans church scandal, clergy abuse, New Orleans clergy abuse scandal, New Orleans church scandal, NFL and NBA support, crisis management, email communications, New Orleans community support.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As New Orleans church leaders braced for the fallout from publishing a list of predatory Catholic priests, they turned to an unlikely ally: the front office of the city’s NFL franchise.
What followed was a months-long, crisis-communications blitz orchestrated by the New Orleans Saints’ president and other top team officials, according to hundreds of internal emails obtained by The Associated Press.
The records, which the Saints and church had long sought to keep out of public view, reveal team executives played a more extensive role than previously known in a public relations campaign to mitigate fallout from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The emails shed new light on the Saints’ foray into a fraught topic far from the gridiron, a behind-the-scenes effort driven by the team’s devoutly Catholic owner who has long enjoyed a close relationship with the city’s embattled archbishop.
They also showed how various New Orleans institutions — from a sitting federal judge to the local media — rallied around church leaders at a critical moment.
Among the key moments, as revealed in the Saints’ own emails:
— Saints executives were so involved in the church’s damage control that a team spokesman briefed his boss on a 2018 call with the city’s top prosecutor hours before the church released a list of clergymen accused of abuse. The call, the spokesman said, “allowed us to take certain people off” the list.
— Team officials were among the first people outside the church to view that list, a carefully curated, yet undercounted roster of suspected pedophiles. The disclosure of those names invited civil claims against the church and drew attention from federal and state law enforcement.
— The team’s president, Dennis Lauscha, drafted more than a dozen questions that Archbishop Gregory Aymond should be prepared to answer as he faced reporters.
— The Saints’ senior vice president of communications, Greg Bensel, provided fly-on-the-wall updates to Lauscha about local media interviews, suggesting church and team leaders were all on the same team. “He is doing well,” Bensel wrote as the archbishop told reporters the church was committed to addressing the crisis. “That is our message,” Bensel added, “that we will not stop here today.”
The emails obtained by AP sharply undercut assurances the Saints gave fans about the public relations guidance five years ago when they asserted they had provided only “minimal” assistance to the church. The team went to court to keep its internal emails secret.
“This is disgusting,” said state Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans. “As a New Orleans resident, taxpayer and Catholic, it doesn’t make any sense to me why the Saints would go to these lengths to protect grown men who raped children. All of them should have been just as horrified at the allegations.”
The Saints told AP last week that the partnership is a thing of the past. The emails cover a yearlong period ending in July 2019, when they were subpoenaed by attorneys for victims of a priest later charged with raping an 8-year-old boy.
In a lengthy statement, the team criticized the media for using “leaked emails for the purpose of misconstruing a well-intended effort.”
“No member of the Saints organization condones or wants to cover up the abuse that occurred in the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” the team said. “That abuse occurred is a terrible fact.”
The team’s response did little to quell the anger of survivors of clergy sexual abuse. “We felt betrayed by the organization,” said Kevin Bourgeois, a former Saints season ticket holder who was abused by a priest in the 1980s. “It forces me to question what other secrets are being withheld. I’m angry, hurt and re-traumatized again.”
Emails reveal extent of help
After the AP first reported on the alliance in early 2020, Saints owner Gayle Benson denied that anyone “associated with our organizations made recommendations or had input” on the list of pedophile priests.
The Saints reiterated that denial in its statement Saturday, saying no Saints employees “had any responsibility for adding or removing any names from that list.” The team said that no employees offered “any input, suggestions or opinions as to who should be included or omitted from” the list.
Leon Cannizzaro, the district attorney at the time, last week denied any role in shaping the credibly accused clergy list, echoing statements he made in 2020. He told AP he “absolutely had no involvement in removing any names from any list.” Cannizzaro said he did not know why the Saints’ spokesman would have reported he had been on a call related to the list.
The emails, sent from Saints accounts, don’t specify which clergymen were removed from the list or why. They raise fresh questions, however, about the Saints’ role in a scandal that has taken on much larger legal and financial stakes since the team waded into it, potentially in violation of the NFL’s policy against conduct “detrimental to the league.”
A coalescing of New Orleans institutions
The outsized role of Saints executives could draw new attention from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who is scheduled to address reporters Monday as New Orleans prepares to host its 11th Super Bowl. Messages requesting comment were sent to the NFL.
Taken together, the emails portray a coalescing of several New Orleans institutions. U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey, who was copied by the Saints on the public relations efforts, cheered Bensel on from his personal email account, thanking the team’s spokesman “for the wonderful advice.” A newspaper editor similarly thanked Bensel for getting involved.
“You have hit all the points,” Zainey, a fellow Catholic, wrote in another email to Bensel, praising a lengthy note the Saints spokesman sent to local newspaper editors. “By his example and leadership, Archbishop Aymond, our shepherd, will continue to lead our Church in the right direction — helping us to learn and to rebuild from the mistakes of the past.”
Zainey later struck down a Louisiana law, vigorously opposed by the church, that would have allowed victims to bring civil claims irrespective of how long ago the alleged sex abuse took place. He declined to comment.
A watershed moment for the Catholic Church
The list marked a watershed in heavily Catholic New Orleans — a long-awaited mea culpa to parishioners intended to usher in healing and local accountability. It came at a time when church leaders were seeking to retain public trust — and financial support — as they reckoned with generations of abuse and mounting litigation that eventually drove the Archdiocese of New Orleans into bankruptcy.
That litigation, filed in 2020, involves more than 600 people who say they were abused by clergy. The case has produced a trove of still-secret church records said to document years of abuse claims and a pattern of church leaders transferring clergy without reporting their crimes to law enforcement.
While it has since expanded, the list of accused priests was missing a number of clergy when it was originally released, an earlier AP investigation found.
The AP identified 20 clergymen who had been accused in lawsuits or charged by law enforcement with child sexual abuse who were inexplicably omitted from the New Orleans list — including two who were charged and convicted of crimes.
Still, the list has served as a roadmap for both the FBI and Louisiana State Police, which launched sweeping investigations into New Orleans church leaders’ shielding of predatory priests.
Last spring, state police carried out a wide-ranging search warrant at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seizing records that include communications with the Vatican.
Since the Saints began assisting the archdiocese, at least seven current and former members of the local clergy have been charged with crimes ranging from rape to possession of child pornography.
Public relations campaign
The extent of the abuse remained largely unknown in 2018, a year the Saints won nine consecutive games on the way to an NFC Championship appearance. As the church prepped for a media onslaught, Bensel carried out an aggressive public relations campaign in which he called in favors, prepared talking points and leaned on long-time media contacts to support the church through a “soon-to-be-messy” time.
Far from freelancing, Bensel had the Saints’ backing and blessing through what he called a “Galileo moment,” suggesting Aymond would be a trailblazer in releasing a credibly accused clergy list at a critical time for the church. In emails to editorial boards, he warned against “casting a critical eye” on the archbishop “is neither beneficial nor right.”
He urged the city’s newspapers to “work with” the church, reminding them the Saints and New Orleans Pelicans — the city’s NBA team, also owned by Benson — had been successful thanks, in part, to their support.
“We did this because we had buy-in from YOU,” Bensel wrote to the editors of The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate, “supporting our mission to be the best, to make New Orleans and everything within her bounds the best.”
“We are sitting on that opportunity now with the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” he added. “We need to tell the story of how this Archbishop is leading us out of this mess.”
Close relationship between Saints and the Catholic Church
Benson and Aymond, the archbishop, have been confidants for years. It was the archbishop who introduced Benson to her late husband, Tom Benson, who died in 2018, leaving his widow in control of New Orleans’ NFL and NBA franchises.
The Bensons’ foundation has given tens of millions of dollars to the archdiocese and other Catholic causes. Along the way, Aymond has flown on the owner’s private jet and become almost a part of the team, frequently celebrating pregame Masses.
When the clergy abuse allegations came to a head, Bensel, the Saints’ spokesman, worked his contacts in the local media to help shape the story. He had friendly email exchanges with a Times-Picayune columnist who praised the archbishop for releasing the clergy list. He also asked the newspaper’s leadership to keep their communications “confidential, not for publication nor to share with others.”
His emails revealed that The Advocate – after Aymond privately complained to the publisher — removed a notice from one online article that had called for clergy abuse victims to reach out.
Kevin Hall, president and publisher of Georges Media, which owns the newspaper, said the publication welcomes engagement from community leaders but that outreach “does not dilute our journalistic standards or keep us from pursuing the truth.”
“No one gets preferential treatment in our coverage of the news,” he said in a statement. “Over the past six years, we have consistently published in-depth stories highlighting the ongoing serious issues surrounding the archdiocese sex abuse crisis, as well as investigative reports on this matter by WWL-TV and by The Associated Press.”
It was The Advocate’s reporting that prompted Bensel to help the church, the emails show. He first offered to “chat crisis communications” with church leaders after the newspaper exposed a scandal involving a disgraced deacon, George Brignac, who remained a lay minister even after the archdiocese settled claims he raped an 8-year-old altar boy.
“We have been through enough at Saints to be a help or sounding board,” Bensel wrote, “but I don’t want to overstep!”
In a bombshell revelation, leaked NFL emails have exposed the extensive measures taken by the New Orleans Saints to manage the fallout from the clergy sex abuse crisis that rocked the Catholic Church.
The emails, obtained by investigative journalists, detail the team’s efforts to downplay the scandal and protect its image in the wake of the shocking allegations against former Saints chaplain Father Michael O’Connor. The emails reveal that team executives were in constant communication with PR consultants and legal advisors, strategizing on how to navigate the crisis and minimize the damage to the team’s reputation.
The extent of the Saints’ damage control efforts is staggering, with team officials reportedly going as far as to draft statements for players and coaches to use in response to media inquiries, and even considering hiring a crisis management firm to handle the fallout.
The revelations have sparked outrage among fans and commentators, who are questioning the team’s priorities and ethics in the face of such serious allegations. Many are calling for accountability and transparency from the Saints organization, as well as the NFL, in light of these damning emails.
As the scandal continues to unfold, one thing is clear: the Saints’ reputation has been tarnished, and it remains to be seen how they will recover from this damaging revelation.
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There seems more trouble for Meta’s former COO Sheryl Sandberg. Just days after, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg put the blame for all so-called wrong policies in the company on her, now comes a damning legal case. According to a recent report in New York Times, Zuckerberg blamed former COO Sandberg for Facebook’s current “culture” and inclusivity initiatives. According to report, Zuckerberg made these remarks during a meeting with Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump. Sandberg has now reportedly been sanctioned by a Delaware judge for allegedly deleting emails related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.According to a report in Tech Crunch, this stems from a shareholder lawsuit filed late last year against Sandberg and former Meta board member Jeff Zients.
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The shareholders allege that Sandberg and Zients used personal email accounts to discuss matters related to a 2018 lawsuit accusing Facebook leaders of violating the law and their fiduciary duties regarding user privacy. They further claim that Sandberg and Zients deleted emails from these personal accounts despite a court order not to. The judge found these allegations credible. The judge’s decision states that Sandberg used a personal Gmail account under a pseudonym for communications relevant to the case. The judge also noted inconsistencies in Sandberg’s responses to interrogatories and plaintiffs’ questions, suggesting she selectively deleted emails rather than using an auto-delete function. As a sanction, the judge has raised the burden of proof for Sandberg’s affirmative defense. She must now prove her defense with “clear and convincing” evidence, a higher standard than the usual “preponderance” of evidence. The judge also awarded certain expenses to the plaintiffs. A spokesperson for Sandberg maintains that the plaintiffs’ claims are without merit, stating that “all work emails were preserved on Facebook’s servers.” The underlying issue involves allegations that Meta violated a 2012 FTC order prohibiting the company from collecting and sharing user data without consent. Facebook allegedly sold data to commercial partners, including Cambridge Analytica, and removed required disclosures from privacy settings. Meta previously paid a $5 billion fine to the FTC in 2019 for violating this order and has also faced penalties from European regulators.
Just days after being dumped by Mark Zuckerberg, former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg finds herself in hot water once again. This time, she has received a court notice for allegedly using Gmail for work-related communication and deleting emails in violation of a court order.
Sandberg, who was recently ousted from her position at Meta, is now facing legal repercussions for her alleged actions. The court notice states that Sandberg was using a Gmail account to conduct work-related communication, which goes against the company’s policies. Additionally, it is alleged that she deleted emails that were supposed to be preserved as part of an ongoing legal case.
This latest development comes as a blow to Sandberg, who has already been under scrutiny for her role in the downfall of Meta. Her relationship with Zuckerberg had been a topic of much speculation, and now it seems that her legal troubles are only adding to her woes.
It remains to be seen how Sandberg will respond to these allegations and what impact they will have on her future career prospects. Stay tuned for updates as this story continues to unfold.
Brad Pitt is pushing a judge to compel Angelina Jolie to hand over a cache of emails that could reveal some explosive details about her actions during the sale. Yes, Brad Pitt wants Angeline Jolie to open up about her role in the sale of their $160 million Château Miraval vineyard.
The two have been locked in a bitter legal battle for years, ever since Jolie sold her share of the winery to the Stoli Group without Pitt’s approval.
Angelina Jolie is Reportedly Making Her Last-Ditch Attempt to Suppress the Truth
The court documents are explosive, accusing Angelina Jolie of a desperate attempt to bury the truth by withholding crucial emails with her inner circle.
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Brad Pitt Demands Angelina Jolie Hand Over Secret Emails In Explosive Winery Battle, “Their Messy Divorce Is About To Get Messier”
The ongoing divorce battle between Hollywood power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie has taken a dramatic turn as Brad Pitt demands that Angelina Jolie hand over secret emails in their explosive winery battle.
According to sources close to the couple, Brad Pitt is seeking access to emails that he believes could be crucial evidence in their ongoing legal dispute over the ownership of their French winery, Chateau Miraval. The winery, which the couple purchased together in 2008, has become a major point of contention in their divorce proceedings.
The couple’s messy divorce has been making headlines for years, with allegations of infidelity, substance abuse, and child custody issues swirling around them. Now, with Brad Pitt’s demand for access to Angelina Jolie’s emails, it seems that their already messy divorce is about to get even messier.
It remains to be seen how Angelina Jolie will respond to Brad Pitt’s demand for access to her emails, but one thing is for certain: this high-profile divorce battle is far from over. Stay tuned for more updates on this explosive Hollywood breakup.
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In today’s digital age, scams are becoming more prevalent and sophisticated, making it increasingly important to be vigilant and informed about how to protect yourself from falling victim to fraud. Whether it’s through phishing emails, scam calls, or fraudulent websites, scammers are constantly finding new ways to exploit unsuspecting individuals for their personal and financial information.
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After the Bears shifted gears from pursuing redevelopment of the 326-acre Arlington Park property, Arlington Heights village officials worked to get the team and three area school districts back to the bargaining table to resolve a long-running property tax dispute. Brian Hill/bhill@dailyherald.com
Months of internal emails and texts obtained by the Daily Herald show the extent to which Arlington Heights village officials tried to broker a property tax deal between three school districts and the Chicago Bears after the team shifted its stadium development focus away from Arlington Park.
The behind-the-scenes negotiations led to approval earlier this month of a memorandum of understanding by the elected boards of Arlington Heights and the school districts, ending a dispute over taxes and other issues at the Bears’ 326-acre property.
In March, the Bears appealed a Cook County Board of Review decision on the value of the former racetrack property — which would stick the NFL franchise with an $8.9 million annual tax bill — while publicly announcing a shift in plans to build a domed stadium on the south parking lot of Soldier Field.
Arlington Heights Village Manager Randy Recklaus met with the superintendents of Northwest Suburban High School District 214, Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 and Palatine Township Elementary District 15 at village hall on April 19, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Arlington Heights Village Manager Randy Recklaus
Follow-up text messages between Recklaus and District 214 Superintendent Scott Rowe indicate attorneys for the village and school districts planned to talk about revisions to the memorandum, which village officials first drafted in 2023, before it was shelved amid the Bears-versus-schools tax battle.
Negotiations ramped up in the weeks following revelation of the Bears’ $4.7 billion plan to redevelop the Chicago lakefront with a publicly owned domed stadium anchoring a recreation and cultural campus.
The day of the April 24 press conference where Bears President/CEO Kevin Warren and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson touted the plans, Arlington Heights officials worked with their lobbyists to craft messaging to the public, press and politicians.
“We can tweak after the press conference, but may be good to share something like this with friendly voices out there,” Recklaus wrote in an email to other village administrators, attaching a talking points document to share with legislators and a plan comparison between the Bears’ lakefront and Arlington Park proposals.
The Bears in April unveiled plans for a new publicly owned Chicago lakefront stadium. Courtesy of Chicago Bears
Though redacted, emails show revisions were made throughout the day by lobbyists Matt Murphy and Anne Schaeffer, Village Attorney Hart Passman, Assistant Village Manager Diana Mikula and Recklaus.
The village manager met again with the superintendents two days later.
He set up meetings with village trustees to review the latest draft of the memorandum the week of May 6, and asked the superintendents to do the same with their school board members.
“How’s it going with the boards?” Recklaus asked Rowe in a May 15 text.
“Going smoothly so far,” Rowe replied. “I have one more board member to meet with and then I’ll be home. I haven’t heard from the other two (school boards) but should get an update on our weekly call tomorrow. I think things are going fine though.”
Northwest Suburban High School District 214 Superintendent Scott Rowe Paul Valade/pvalade@dailyherald.com, February 2024
By the end of the month, the parties sent a copy of the draft document to the Bears with an attached letter from Recklaus and the three superintendents.
Written communications indicate Passman — the village attorney — worked with lawyers for the Bears and schools on revisions to the proposed settlement.
By late July, there appeared to be a breakthrough in talks.
“On behalf of the school districts I wanted to send a message sharing that we are happy to be reengaging on the MOU and have had productive discussions with the village since we last spoke,” Rowe wrote in a July 30 email to the Bears’ Warren. “We are hopeful that we can get together in the near future and begin building our path forward together in Arlington Heights. Best of luck with the start of the season!”
Warren replied the next day.
“Scott: Thank you. Best, Kevin”
Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren Christopher Placek/cplacek@dailyherald.com, June 2024
The parties met at District 214’s Arlington Heights headquarters on Oct. 7 to put a bow on the agreement. Bears Chairman George McCaskey told Mayor Tom Hayes the football club’s leadership was meeting internally Nov. 20 to discuss the proposal, one text message shows.
Village and school district officials learned two days later Bears brass were on board.
“Did you get the good news,” Recklaus texted Rowe.
“I did! Fantastic!” Rowe replied.
The Bears are still appealing the 2023 tax bill to the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board, but the settlement would lower the annual bill to $3.6 million from 2024 at least through 2027. It could remain that amount if the Bears submit formal plans seeking village zoning approvals for a new stadium and then apply for building permits to begin construction, under terms of the deal.
The Bears will pay $3.6 million a year in property taxes at the sprawling Arlington Park property at least through 2027, under terms of a settlement inked this month. Brian Hill/bhill@dailyherald.com
While Bears officials have said they are now aligned with the village and schools on a framework for potential future development planning, financing and property tax certainty at Arlington Park, they’ve reiterated their focus is trying to build a new stadium on the Chicago lakefront.
In an interview Thursday, Recklaus characterized the negotiations process spanning nearly two years as a “marathon not a sprint” during which multiple iterations of the agreement were considered.
“There were a lot of times where I thought we were basically done,” he said. “There’ve been enough instances where we almost had it done that I was not going to accept it until we got the final word, and we did.”
In a recent development, internal emails and texts have revealed the behind-the-scenes negotiations between Arlington Heights officials and local school districts in striking a deal with the Chicago Bears. The discussions shed light on the various considerations and agreements made to bring the NFL team to the area.
From coordinating transportation plans to discussing the impact on school schedules and facilities, the correspondence provides insight into the collaborative efforts between the municipality and the educational institutions. Additionally, the messages highlight the shared commitment to ensuring a smooth transition for the Bears and the community at large.
As Arlington Heights prepares to welcome the iconic football franchise, the revealed communications offer a glimpse into the intricate planning and coordination involved in securing such a significant partnership. Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting development!
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Arlington Heights Bears deal, Arlington Heights school districts, Arlington Heights partnership with schools, Arlington Heights community collaboration, Arlington Heights local government, Arlington Heights sports partnership, Arlington Heights community involvement, Arlington Heights Bears agreement, Arlington Heights school district collaboration
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