A Former New York Giants Employee Is Suing The Team After He Was Allegedly Assaulted And Threatened By Execs And A Coach
NJ.com- A longtime former Giants employee is suing the organization claiming violence in the workplace and retaliation. David Maltese, who was the Giants’ video director for nearly 30 years, is alleging that he was fired after reporting that his immediate supervisor physically assaulted Steven Venditti, an assistant video director. The complaint alleges that after years of suffering verbal and physical abuses personally, on Sept. 12 Maltese witnessed Venditti be physically assaulted by Tyseer Siam, his direct supervisor. Siam is the director of football data & innovation and was hired last year to help improve the Giants’ analytics department.
According to the lawsuit, Maltese reported the incident to upper management on Sept. 12. Later on, he expressed concern that the subordinate — allegedly assaulted by Siam — was to be seated near Siam on an airplane for an upcoming Giants game. According to the lawsuit, William J. Heller, the Giants’ senior vice president and general counsel — also a defendant in the case — accused Maltese of “writing for the record” and “trying to set [the Giants] up”.
I remember everyone was clowning Dave Gettleman for sprucing up the analytics team because he was calling a handful of nerds hired to bring the Giants into the 21st century "computah folk". Well it sounds like some of those computah folks were some of the biggest brawlers in The Meadowlands. Not the superhuman gladiators that do battle every Sunday during the fall or the coaches that get paid to scream at those superhumans then make them run laps. But the dudes grinding spreadsheets and crushing pivot tables in Excel are the ones allegedly throwing fists and insults around all willy nilly. What a twist.
Not only that, but once the complaints went up the chain of command and in front of the VP of HR, things got even hairier.
After the initial reporting of the incident, according to the lawsuit, Maltese participated in a number of joint meetings with Debra Agosta, the Giants’ vice president of human resources, and Heller. In one meeting on Sept. 30, per the lawsuit, Heller allegedly threatened Maltese by saying that if Maltese revealed the substance of the issue outside of the meetings between Maltese, Heller and Agosta, “I [Heller] will personally go into your office and strangle you until you can no longer breathe, ok? Ok?”
That's fucking outrageous! The only person I can remember acting like that in front of HR was Michael Scott and he was a fictional character with a blood feud against his HR rep.
Then to cap it all off, we even allegedly had violence between Maltese and a Football Guy.
The lawsuit also mentions that Maltese had allegedly been physically attacked by a different employee in the past named John Mancuso, the Giants’ former video director. According to the lawsuit, Maltese was also allegedly “ragefully tackled” by former Giants offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo in December 2004. According to the lawsuit, DeGuglielmo tackled him into a table while screaming “I’m going to kill you.” Per the lawsuit, defensive line coach Mike Waffle and three Giants players had to restrain DeGuglielmo. The alleged attack, per the lawsuit, happened in front of Chris Mara — the Giants’ senior vice president of player personnel — as well as general manager Ernie Accorsi and head athletic trainer Ronnie Barnes.
I'll be honest, hearing an O-Line coach, and I quote "ragefully tackled" someone simply doesn't shock me in the least. It doesn't matter if it's a fellow coach, a player, or especially someone in the front office. I imagine that an O-Line coach has the same mental reaction to seeing someone in khakis on a football field as a bull that sees red.
Now as always, there are two sides to every story and I am dying to hear the other one in all this because the thought of some guy fighting his way through the Giants org chart like it's Mortal Kombat is craaaazy to me.
Just this incident happening to the Giants as General Coughlin was roaming the building is bananas. The Jets get accused of some crazy shit like this at any point of their franchise's history and I'm not batting an eyelash. But the Giants allegedly having some of this shit happen back when Wellington Mara was running the New York Football Giants as the class of the NFL is flat out nuts.
I guess we'll see what pans out in court after a crazy set of accusations.