In 1991, a former clubhouse attendant held up a sign during a televised Red Sox/Angels game that read, "Donald Fitzpatrick sexually assaulted me." Fitzpatrick, a longtime Red Sox clubhouse manager who died in 2005, took a leave of absence after the sign incident and never returned. The Red Sox settled with the person who held up the sign, as well as a $3.15 million lawsuit to seven victims who sued the team after Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to attempted sexual battery.
Sex Abuse Victims Seek $10 Million in Damages From Red Sox
Two former Boston Red Sox clubhouse attendants, victims of sex abuse by the Red Sox’ clubhouse manager in the ‘90s, are seeking $10 million in damages.
The story hasn’t gone away completely, though, and it looks like more lawsuits could be coming. From the Boston Globe:
(Charles Crawford’s) accusation - and that of a second man who, like Crawford, was a teenage clubhouse attendant in the 1990s - is the latest chapter in a sex abuse scandal many believed had been relegated to the Red Sox’s past.The men notified Sox executives last week they are seeking $5 million each in damages.
After the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State University, Jeff Passan reported on the history of Fitzpatrick’s crimes. The Red Sox responded to the Boston Globe story from Monday with a prepared statement:
”The Red Sox have always viewed the actions of Mr. Fitzpatrick to be abhorrent,’’ the club’s legal counsel, Daniel Goldberg, said in a prepared statement. “When the team, then under a previous ownership group, became aware of the allegations against Mr. Fitzpatrick in 1991, he was promptly relieved of his duties.It would be tough for the two new accusers to bring a lawsuit against the Red Sox, though, because as the Globe reports, the statute of limitations expired for either a civil suit or the filing of criminal charges.
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