Flag on new NFL aide: Roger Goodell's criminal adviser ripped over abuse probe

By Michael O'keeffe
New York Daily News
September 16, 2014

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/flag-new-nfl-aide-roger-goodell-criminal-adviser-ripped-abuse-probe-article-1.1942380

Lisa Friel, named Monday as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's adviser on criminal cases and player conduct, is criticized for lack of substance in report she helped prepare on sexual abuse allegations at Yeshiva University.

Ray Rice is suspended from the NFL indefinitely.

Adrian Peterson was indicted last week on felony child abuse charges.

Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers is appealing his domestic violence conviction.

The lawyers hired by Yeshiva University in January 2013 to investigate allegations that the Washington Heights school had covered up decades of sexual abuse didn't leave any stone unturned.

The investigators spent 6,300 hours on the case, interviewing more than 145 people, including victims and school employees accused of sexual abuse. They reviewed millions of emails and thousands of pages of documents, including personnel records, legal files and board meeting minutes.

The investigation was led by Karen Patton Seymour, the former chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, now a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, the Manhattan white-shoe law firm with offices across the globe. Seymour and S&C brought in Lisa Friel and her security firm, T&M Protection Resources, to assist with the probe.

Friel assumed an even bigger stage on Monday, when embattled NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced that he had hired the former chief of the Manhattan district attorney's sex crimes unit to advise him on criminal cases and violations of the league's personal conduct policy.

The T&M vice president, one of four women Goodell said will help guide the NFL through the worst crisis in its 94-year history, is already reviewing the cases against Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota Vikings star who was indicted last week on felony child abuse charges, and Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers, who is appealing his domestic violence conviction.

But if the Yeshiva case — where Friel's work and independence have come into question — is any indication, transparency and victims' concerns may take a backseat to NFL public relations. The lawyer representing 34 men who claim Yeshiva officials covered up the sex abuse allegations says the university used Friel and her investigators as "unwitting cogs" in an ongoing conspiracy to conceal the abuse. It was an effort, he says, to allay alumni anger and public outrage — and shield the Orthodox Jewish university from any liability.

"It is important for these type of investigators to have enough evidence to serve transparency and the truth," says attorney Kevin Mulhearn. "The opposite happened in the Yeshiva case. The investigation was just another way to manipulate the truth and conceal the university's own atrocious conduct."

The final report on the results of the extensive investigation conducted by Patton Seymour and Friel, released in late August of 2013, concluded that the university ignored or failed to act appropriately on physical and sexual abuse allegations made before 2001 but acted decisively when it received complaints after that year.

But as sex abuse expert Marci Hamilton wrote last year in a post on "Verdict," a legal issues website, the report was "short on facts and long on public relations."

It did not quote any victims or address specific allegations made against two rabbis who taught at Yeshiva's affiliated high school. It did not include statements from Yeshiva employees accused of abuse or assault. The 21-page document simply provided a brief overview how the investigation was conducted and recommendations the school should take to prevent future abuse.

It did not examine how or why the school failed to act for decades.

"I would not have permitted my name to be on such a deficient and embarrassing document," wrote Hamilton, a professor at Yeshiva's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. "A document that was truly a 'Report' would have included an actual report of the facts that prompted the need to review those policies."

Mulhearn said most of the blame for the report's lack of substance and transparency should go to the Yeshiva officials who hired the investigators; Friel did not have control over how the school would use the information she gathered. But Mulhearn knocks Friel for lending her expertise and reputation to what he calls "a continuation of the conspiracy to conceal."

A three-judge appeals panel recently upheld U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl's decision to toss the lawsuit Mulhearn filed on behalf of the 34 men last year, citing statute of limitations issues. Mulhearn has asked the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case.

A Yeshiva University spokesman declined to comment on the abuse report. T&M referred calls about Friel to NFL spokeswoman Joanna Hunter, who did not return a request for comment.

Friel's departure from the Manhattan district attorney's office was also steeped in controversy. She submitted her resignation shortly after a documentary on the sex crimes unit aired on HBO showing two prosecution witnesses — investigators in the district attorney's office — talk about the infamous "rape cop" case on camera. Prosecutors did not provide the tape to defense lawyers as required by law, and Friel was reportedly called into District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.'s office and "read the riot act." Her resignation was announced the following day.

Friel's departure may have also been fueled by a tug of war over Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund chief accused of assaulting a hotel maid. Vance deputy Dan Alonso wanted a swift indictment for the international banker.

Friel wanted to move more methodically, and supporters said she was vindicated when the charges were dropped against Strauss-Kahn, in part because the victim had changed her story about the alleged assault and had falsely told immigration officials that she had been gang raped in her native Guinea to gain asylum in the United States.

Mulhearn, who represented 12 men who settled a sex-abuse lawsuit against Poly Prep, credits Friel for helping the Brooklyn school develop stronger sex-abuse policies. The school, also accused of covering up decades of sexual abuse, hired Friel in 2011 to develop policies to combat sexual abuse, harassment and bullying, and Poly Prep spokesman Malcolm Farley said Friel continues to advise the school and provide training to students, faculty and employees.

"Poly Prep has developed cutting-edge sexual abuse and sexual harassment policies, and Lisa Friel should get credit for that," Mulhearn said.

But Mulhearn's Poly Prep clients weren't that generous after Friel signed on with the school and made a bizarre statement to The Wall Street Journal: "You can't judge how people did things in the '60's and '70's by 2011 standards," she said. "People had very different understandings of what sexual abuse was in the '60s and '70s and what a pedophile was, and they handled things very differently back then than anybody does today."

That mentality probably won't provide much comfort to the next woman or child assaulted by an NFL player.

"That kind of timid and pathetic thinking is still being used by judges across the state to deny justice to victims," Mulhearn said. "It rewards schools and institutions that cover up sexual assault."