After being vilified publicly from Ted Wells' investigation into the Miami Dolphins bullying scandal and subsequently fired, longtime NFL trainer Kevin O'Neill is fighting back.
The Orlando Sun-Sentinel reported that O'Neill, who was to be honored as the NFL Trainer of the Year, has hired the law firm of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley in an apparent attempt to fight his termination.
According to the Los Angeles Times, attorney Jack Scarola issued a statement to the media on behalf of O'Neill, his client who was accused of laughing at inappropriate jokes aimed at offensive lineman Jonathan Martin and an unidentified assistant trainer.
Scarola wrote the Wells report "comes nowhere near supporting the decision of the Dolphins' management to sack Mr. O'Neill.
"Instead," he wrote, "it demonstrates that Kevin O'Neill was improperly singled out to placate an understandable public outcry for action in response to what was publicly portrayed as intolerable workplace bullying."
O'Neill's name came up twice in the Wells report, the Times stated - in laughing "from time to time" at unspecified vulgar comments about Martin's sister and laughing "at some racial insults" directed toward his assistant trainer, who is of Asian descent.
Scarola wrote that "if Kevin O'Neill laughed at the ribald locker room humor at Jonathan Martin's expense, he was not alone. Martin himself admitted that his own response to the harsh teasing to which he was subjected was 'to laugh it off.' Martin never reported or complained about the harassment to anyone, including Kevin O'Neill. In fact, when Martin was not laughing, his response was to ignore the teasing without ever challenging the offending teammates.
"If Mr. O'Neill laughed, and if Mr. O'Neill at other times ignored the vulgar 'humor' to which Mr. Martin was subjected, then Kevin O'Neill was doing exactly what Jonathan Martin was doing and exactly what, by all appearances, Jonathan Martin wanted done."
The next move O'Neill's representatives make could be a lawsuit or at least the threat of a lawsuit as O'Neill fights to clear his name.
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