According to a lawsuit, Joe Namath concealed sexual abuse during his football camp in the 1970s.
In a lawsuit that was covered by the New York Post late on Sunday, legendary quarterback Joe Namath of Alabama and the New York Jets is accused of egregious things.
The 80-year-old Namath is charged with concealing sexual assault that allegedly occurred at his youth football camp starting in 1972, during his legendary career with the Jets. The Post reports that 64-year-old Philip Lyle Smith recently came forward to claim that, starting when he was just 12 years old, he was sexually abused at the Joe Namath Instructional Football Camp by Brooklyn prep school football coach Philip Foglietta. Foglietta, who passed away in 1998 after being charged with molesting several young boys, was the abuser.
Smith said to The Post that Foglietta “invited” him to attend a number of Namath’s camps in Vermont and Massachusetts. He claimed that the abuse allegedly occurred in Foglietta’s room, which he was permitted to sleep in by camp supervisors.
The Child Victims Act, which extended the statute of limitations for purported victims to file civil lawsuits against people and businesses, was the basis for Smith’s initial 2019 lawsuit, but it has since expired. Smith was initially identified in the lawsuit as “John Doe,” but he has since come forward to share his story with the public for the first time.
The lawsuit accuses Namath and other defendants of being “enablers and pedophile protectors,” among them John Dockery, a former Jets teammate who would go on to become an NFL broadcaster. It also claims that “abuse that had a lasting effect on [Smith] was known to Namath and others, who knew about it, tolerated it, and covered it up.”
“Joe Namath was my hero back then,” Smith said to The Post. And he turned from being my life’s hero to a zero.
The defense is contesting Smith’s ability to file a lawsuit in New York state on the grounds that the disputed camps were located in Vermont and Massachusetts, according to NBC News. It also calls into question if Dockery and Namath are the rightful defendants on their own. Although the case has been dragged through the courts for years, the state appeals court is anticipated to hear it soon.
During his time as an Alabama quarterback in 1962–1964, Namath led Paul “Bear” Bryant’s Crimson Tide to a national championship as a senior. At the end of the 1968 season, he signed a contract with the Jets for an NFL record $400,000, and he helped the team win Super Bowl III, one of the most memorable games in NFL history.
Namath, who is currently retired in Florida, has recently made a number of appearances around the Alabama football program. He visited the campus earlier in the season to guest pick the Sept. 9 home game against Texas on ESPN’s College GameDay.
Fox News and NBC News, among many other media outlets, as well as The Post, were not given a comment from Namath’s lawyer.
