The Jets say they uncovered a “disturbing” conspiracy inside their own front office, accusing a fired executive of helping stage false sexual harassment claims against team president Hymie Elhai in an effort to oust him.
Elaine Chen, a former executive in the Jets’ finance department, sued the franchise last week in New Jersey state court over allegations she was unlawfully axed after her husband, Larry Fitzpatrick, told team investigators that Elhai had sexually harassed female employees.
Fitzpatrick, also a team employee, was fired on July 25, while Chen was fired July 30, according to the lawsuit. Chen claimed she was wrongfully fired simply because she was married to Fitzpatrick.
The situation centers around an anonymous email sent to team executives on July 10 that contained what the Jets say are “baseless” allegations of sexual harassment by Elhai. The team says it was suspicious due to the lack of details in the email, and the fact that “no concerns or issues” had ever been raised about Elhai.
However, the Jets still launched an investigation, the team says. What they found was a bizarre “conspiracy” that barely managed to cover its own tracks, according to a 67-page filing of counterclaims filed against Chen on Monday.
Chen, Fitzpatrick and others fabricated the allegations about Elhai, sent them to a group of other Jets executives, and were found to be discussing them over text message and email, according to the Jets’ countersuit. They openly discussed the plot and told each other to delete various messages in order to keep them hidden. In one instance, the team says an unidentified co-conspirator accidentally sent a private email that was part of the plot to Fitzpatrick’s work email, then sent another message saying “Whoops. Sent to your work email by mistake. Delete.” The co-conspirator also included guidance on how Fitzpatrick could “deceive” the Jets into thinking he was not involved.
“Chen was actively involved in the conspiracy and, based on her own text messages with Fitzpatrick, gleefully so,” the filing said.
According to the Jets, the lawsuit filed last week “is nothing more than a desperate extension of the conspiracy and an attempt to shakedown [the Jets], which [are] no longer paying Chen’s or Fitzpatrick’s salaries, and to avoid the inevitable and just consequences of their misconduct.”
The Jets included as evidence some of about 4,000 text messages uncovered during the investigation that reveal Chen, Fitzpatrick, and an unidentified co-conspirator, who also used to work for the team, plotted the entire scheme. These texts and other evidence are “irrefutable,” the team says.
In fact, the counterclaims say that while Fitzpatrick was being interviewed for the internal probe, he lied about his role and sought to obstruct the investigation by “furiously” deleting messages from his team phone in front of the investigators, while telling them he was texting his wife, Chen.
“At the end of the interview, Fitzpatrick was asked to turn over his company phone,” the Jets said. “The ‘Recently Deleted’ folder of Fitzpatrick’s phone showed that, during the interview, Fitzpatrick had deleted some 4,000 text messages with various current and former NYJ employees…”
A forensic review of Fitzpatrick’s work phone revealed more than those texts. It also showed a “plethora” of additional misconduct, such as texts to other Jets employees—including his direct reports—that objectified women, other sexually explicit comments, proof that he gambled in violation of NFL policy, and lewd interactions with women on websites like OnlyFans, at least one of which featured him sending a photo of his own genitals.
According to the counterclaims, Chen’s suit belongs in arbitration, and the Jets have initiated an arbitration proceeding against Chen and Fitzpatrick.
The Jets are asking for Chen to pay back all compensation, benefits, expenses, and reimbursements that were paid to her during her “respective periods of disloyalty.” The team also wants attorney’s fees and other relief as the court deems just.
Chen, her attorney, the NFL, and an attorney for the Jets did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
