We Have Three Questions After Michael Irvin’s $100 Million Lawsuit Press Conference

On the Sunday night prior to the Super Bowl in February, former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver and current television personality Michael Irvin was kicked out of his Phoenix hotel. The following day ESPN removed him from the channel’s Super Bowl coverage for the week. Irvin had been accused of inappropriate conduct by an employee of the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel following an encounter in the hotel lobby, and he soon filed a $100 million lawsuit against his accuser and Marriott International.

During a Wednesday press conference the Pro Football Hall of Famer spoke emotionally, equating the treatment he says he’s endured to a lynching. Irvin’s lawyer Levi G. McCathern provided details involving the efforts to see a video the hotel says shows Irvin’s encounter with the unnamed hotel employee. A pair of men, who McCathern says witnessed Irvin’s interaction with the accuser, also gave their version of the events.

Citing the ongoing litigation, Irvin and McCathern declined to answer any questions. Here are our key questions following today’s Michael Irvin press conference.

Was this a racist incident?
In his opening remarks during the press conference, Irvin said this case reminds him of when “a white woman would accuse a black man of something, and they would take a bunch of guys that were above the law, run into the barn, wrap a rope around his foot and drag him through the mud and hang him by the tree.”

The identity of the accuser is still unknown, although it has been reported the accuser is female. Later on in his remarks, Irvin said, “I couldn’t even tell you what she looked like, I don’t know,” after explaining that he meets many people as he goes in and out of hotels throughout the football season. The race or ethnicity of the accuser has not been identified by Irvin, his lawyer or by the eyewitnesses.

“I couldn’t even tell you what she looked like, I don’t know.” – Former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin

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What role did alcohol play?
During the press conference, McCathern said that when Irvin was in the hotel’s lobby area, he was drinking water. One of the witnesses speaking at the press conference, Bryn Davis, recognized Irvin and offered to buy him an alcoholic beverage, which he says Irvin declined, citing his ESPN television work the next morning.

Irvin’s alcohol consumption prior to arriving at the hotel was not discussed during Wednesday’s remarks, however. On Wednesday, Feb 8, Irvin gave a phone interview to local sports radio station 105.3 The Fan. In the interview, Irvin said he didn’t recall the encounter with his accuser because, he said, “I had a few drinks, to tell you the truth,” when he met former Cowboy player Michael Brooks for dinner earlier that evening.

Is the security video really a smoking gun?
Irvin, his lawyer and witnesses have been adamant that the security video from the hotel would only show a brief conversation between Irvin and the accuser. During the press conference, McCathern said that after weeks of trying to get a copy of the video from Marriott, he was able to view the video, although he was not given a copy of it or allowed to make a copy of the video as he watched it.

He said the video shows Irvin touch the accuser four separate times in the span of about a minute and a half: twice to shake hands at the beginning and end of the encounter, and two additional touches on the woman’s arm as he was talking and laughing with her. The witnesses present also reported seeing nothing untoward from a physical perspective, especially, as they explained, the accuser was allegedly laughing and acting jovial through the conversation.

Since Irvin says he doesn’t remember what the conversation with the woman was about, and the video seemingly did not include audio of the conversation. It’s fair to wonder if it was Irvin’s words, not his physical actions, that compelled her to report the incident to hotel management. Irvin ended his press conference comments by saying “I know I didn’t do anything wrong,” yet as he has said on-record multiple times over the past month, he also doesn’t know what he said during the interaction.