Once again, the NFL has insisted that its inability to comprehend the repeated abuse suffered by a woman—Molly Brown, in this case, the ex-wife of New York Giants kicker Josh Brown—wasn’t due to its own incompetence. After blaming the victim a few months ago, NFL leaders decided this time around to blame records custodians, saying everything was the fault of an uncooperative King County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff himself pushed back, saying the problem was the NFL investigator was a
“goofus” and a “yokel” who didn’t even identify himself as being with the NFL.
After the sheriff’s remarks, I asked the sheriff’s office for copies of all documented communication between them and the NFL, the Giants, and anyone working on behalf of the NFL. They showed as the sheriff said that the goofus (aka private investigator Rob Agnew) did not identify himself as being with the NFL. But he did get records anyway. They were released to him at the exact rate they were released to reporters.
The KCSO said it did a search of the online system it uses to respond to public record request. (It’s the same system I’ve been using with them.) They generated two logs from the customer previous identified by the sheriff: Robert Agnew. He gave them an email from comcast.net, a P.O. Box address, and no phone number. The KCSO said all communication with him was through the online system.
All communication with Agnew, they told me, was in bold. Lines that are not in bold, the sheriff’s office told me, are request management—essentially back-end steps like checking on a case or seeing if something can be released or needs redaction.