The plaintiff, Nia Smith, was one of the first women contacted by the NFL star’s legal team when news broke about the first lawsuits being filed last year, according to the original petition filed on the Harris County District Clerk’s website. The lawsuit describes that “in an effort to intimidate her,” one of Watson’s lawyers said to the plaintiff “that they were going to fight the cases to the fullest extent. She also insisted that us Black women must stick together.”
The plaintiff was not one of the initial women to file a lawsuit against Watson, and according to the filing, his legal team tried to convince her to say positive things about Watson once they determined she was not one of the Jane Does.
According to BSO, Smith has some graphic details about her time with Watson
“The only thing that really bothered me in the first appointment was that he kept asking me to go inside his butt.
I originally thought it was the crack and so I would go around that area and he still wasn’t satisfied. He was very adamant and was saying don’t be afraid to go inside.”
He basically didn’t want the rest of his body massaged, he wanted his groin area massaged and his butt only…he kept saying do you want to put in your mouth? It was just very very uncomfortable.”
Deshaun Watson’s attorney Rusty Hardin released a statement to BSO saying the latest allegations are untrue
Deshaun Watson vehemently denies the allegations, just as he has since she first discussed them with members of our firm in March of last year. She repeated the allegations on social media in August and he denied them then. The only thing new about her contentions is the embellishment making them more extreme than prior versions. Deshaun’s denial remains the same.
The two highly respected lawyers from our firm, Letitia Quinones and Rachel Lewis, also vehemently deny there was any coercion or intimidation involved in the very cordial meeting at Vic and Anthony’s (Mr. Buzbee and the plaintiff are not even right about where the meeting was, much less what was said). They met her to see if she was one of Mr. Buzbee’s then still anonymous plaintiffs. At that time Mr. Buzbee refused to identify his clients. The suggestion that either of these two accomplished lawyers would have said “us black women must stick together” is absurd. The interview was so congenial, she joined the lawyers for dinner afterwards.
We are aware that more than a year ago she had other lawyers representing her and they ultimately terminated the representation. This plaintiff has long had a vendetta against Deshaun since she jealously and angrily published Deshaun’s personal data on social media in November 2020. In filing her lawsuit now she was obviously not influenced by recent developments. We are not surprised Mr. Buzbee was willing to say just about anything to get more publicity. He knows the NFL continues to investigate these cases, and this is a transparent attempt to further punish the man he sees as a potential payday.