Ex-Washington employees ask NFL to release report findings

WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty female former Washington Football Team employees asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Thursday to release the final report of an independent investigation into the organization’s conduct.

Owner Dan Snyder hired lawyer Beth Wilkinson to conduct an independent investigation in July after several former employees made allegations of workplace sexual harassment. The NFL in July took over control of the investigation, which the letters from the employees and their lawyers indicated is now complete.

Wilkinson referred comment to the league office. A message for an NFL spokesman was not immediately returned.

“There must be accountability for the actions we believe are detailed in this report,” the employees wrote in their letter to Goodell. “But there cannot be accountability without transparency. And there cannot be healing for any of us without understanding the truth, which will provide confirmation that we are not alone, and that our allegations are supported by others.”

Goodell said at his pre-Super Bowl virtual news conference that Washington “has made a lot of changes already.”

“They asked for this type of review,” Goodell said Feb. 4. “They asked for the recommendations on this. Dan and Tanya (Snyder) are going to be done making those changes for the football club. … It’s good to see that. But I expect that Beth’s recommendations will be something that will be added to that.”

Washington hired Jason Wright as team president last summer and is in the midst of an internal review of all gameday operations.

Seventeen women signed the letter to Goodell by name and three others anonymously. They asked for identities and other private information to be redacted but for the league to make the results of the investigation available to the public.

“Not to do so here would be a betrayal of the many women who courageously came forward to provide vital information to assist with the NFL investigation,” lawyers Lisa Banks and Debra Katz wrote in another letter to Goodell dated Thursday. Banks and Katz said they represent 40 former employees of the team.