Report: Sexual misconduct claim against Snyder led to 2009 settlement originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington

Another layer to the ever-changing drama surrounding Dan Snyder and his ownership of the Washington Football Team has been added to an already complicated mess on Tuesday.

According to this new report from The Washington Post, the organization paid a former female employee $1.6 million in a 2009 confidential settlement after she accused Snyder of sexual misconduct. The alleged incident reportedly occurred during a flight on Snyder’s private plane.

The settlement, per the Post, was revealed in documents filed by the team’s minority owners as part of the ongoing and increasingly nasty fight over their attempted sale of their shares. In those documents, the allegation was referred to as “a serious accusation of sexual misconduct.” 

The employee made the allegations in April 2009 and was later fired for cause in the same year. Despite that, she and the team decided together that her file would be altered so as to indicate she resigned on her own.

Snyder did not provide any comment to the Post.

This is yet another development in what’s been a hectic stretch for the man at the top of one of the NFL’s most-known franchises. Before the season, he decided to retire Washington’s old name and logo, and then multiple Post stories that detailed an apparent toxic culture under Snyder were published.

Since then, he’s become entangled with his minority partners, who are trying to move on.