Zaraki KenpachiCrochet’s investigation concluded that Miles’ conduct was inappropriate but did not rise to the level of prohibited sexual harassment under the law. The results of the inquiry were shared only with Alleva, Segar, then-LSU attorney Shelby McKenzie and three members of LSU’s Board of Supervisors: Garrett Danos, Stanley Jacobs and Robert Yarborough. The officials issued Miles a letter of reprimand, required he attend counseling and again ordered him not to contact student workers.
Before working for LSU, Sharon Lewis recruited clients for an agency that represented NBA athletes and served as a sponsorship coordinator and executive assistant for the Alamo Bowl in her home town of San Antonio.
Before working for LSU, Sharon Lewis recruited clients for an agency that represented NBA athletes and served as a sponsorship coordinator and executive assistant for the Alamo Bowl in her home town of San Antonio.
EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN/USA TODAY
Husch Blackwell said the student’s report “was clearly not handled in a matter consistent with then-University policy,” and it “is not clear how the firm could have been neutral in the investigation.”
Despite having served as the investigator in the matter, Crochet continued to represent LSU in settlement negotiations with the student, attorney fee invoices obtained by USA TODAY show. The invoices show that Bahnsen, then-Senior Associate Athletic Director Herb Vincent, then-LSU general counsel William Jenkins, incoming President Alexander and members of the LSU board were kept apprised of the discussions.
Seeing Crochet’s report eight years later, Lewis said, made her “sick to my stomach.”
“Realizing how unprotected we were, and the lengths they went to hide all this, it just is – I’m reliving it every day, and it’s hard,” Lewis said.
Retaliation allegedly ramps up
After the Miles incidents, Lewis said, she was the target of repeated retaliation by the coach and other LSU athletic department employees that lasted years.
Even though Lewis resumed full control of the hiring process for student workers – and those workers were barred from working after hours, doing personal tasks for coaches or sitting in Miles’ area – Miles continued to undermine her, she said, intimidating her and openly trying to influence the hiring process.
Rather than stick up for her, she said, her colleagues tried to push her out.
In a meeting with Nader, Wilson and Morris, Miles confronted Lewis about the type of girls he wanted for a recruiting event. When she rejected his orders, she said, he kicked everyone out of the room and threatened her.
Sharon Lewis says Sam Nader, director of football operations, told her to “just say what Coach Miles wanted me to say.”
Sharon Lewis says Sam Nader, director of football operations, told her to “just say what Coach Miles wanted me to say.”
LSU
“He got in my face and said that if I was a coach and didn’t do what he said, he would punch him in his mother f—— face,” Lewis said. “I said, ‘I guess that you will just have to punch me in my mother f—— face.’”
Lewis reported this encounter to Nader, Wilson, Ausberry, Bahnsen and others, she said. Lewis said Nader responded by saying, “Next time, I need to just say what Coach Miles wanted me to say.”
On another occasion, Lewis said, she asked Miles why she’d been excluded from the raises that coaches and Nader had received. According to Lewis, Miles told her “it depended on how the girls look.” She told Ausberry, who told her she should look for another job. She complained to athletic department CFO Mark Ewing, who told her the decision was Miles’.
“I felt and feel it’s unfair to be judged not off of my work performance but from the look of the type of girl I hired to please Coach Miles,” Lewis said. “I felt doomed.”
LSU
Miles demanded that a Black student worker leave the building because she was “ugly.” On another occasion, Miles ordered Lewis to fire a student “because he looked gay,” she said. The student was the nephew of Ya’El Lofton, an assistant to Miles. When Lewis said no, she said, he became irate and stood in front of the doorway for two to three minutes, glaring at her.
Lewis reported this incident to Ausberry, Segar, Bahnsen and others, she said. No one seemed to care that she was under attack, Lewis said. Instead, they told her to look for another job.
Lewis suffered a “mental breakdown” as a result of the abuse, she said. She wasn’t sleeping, lost weight, and her hair started falling out, she said. Anxious and depressed, she reached out to Segar, whom she understood to be her Title IX contact, for help. She told Segar she felt she was being retaliated against for reporting Miles. Lewis disclosed that a different football coach was sexually harassing her.
Segar set her up with a therapist, paid for by LSU. The alleged retaliation, Husch Blackwell said in its report, “was never investigated by the leadership of the University.”
Abuse continues, Lewis says
Although LSU fired Miles in September 2016 after a string of losses, many of the administrators who took his side stayed. They continued to retaliate against Lewis, she said, long after Miles left.
Lewis said Ausberry has been particularly hostile. He has screamed at her in meetings, berated her and belittled her, she said. Several employees corroborated these claims to Husch Blackwell, saying they’d witnessed him “hollering” and “screaming” at Lewis repeatedly over the course of the past several years.
When Lewis ran for president of the National L Club, LSU’s alumni association for athletes, Ausberry instructed some of the club’s board members not to vote for her, she said. After she won, she said, Ausberry held a meeting with senior staff members and told them not to grant her all the powers of the presidency.
Ausberry called Lewis a “stupid incompetent b—-” on a phone call with Wilson, unaware that Wilson had him on speakerphone and that Lewis was in the room, she said. Lewis said she reported Ausberry’s comment to Segar, who told her that she and Ausberry were “like brother and sister” and that was just how they spoke to each other.
EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN, USA TODAY
“He is not my brother but my supervisor,” Lewis said, “and he should not be allowed to treat me this way.”
Lewis said she asked Segar to talk to Alleva about it, which Segar did. Rather than help her, Segar and Alleva made a joke about it, Lewis said. Segar asked Lewis to meet for coffee and told her she’d probably be happier working somewhere else.
In a meeting, according to Lewis, Segar sarcastically commented that she had to watch what she said around Lewis, because she reported everything.
Lewis said she indeed reported every Title IX issue to Segar, as she’d been trained. Alleva issued directives to staff to report all such complaints to Segar, instead of directly to the Title IX office, as LSU policy required. Segar verbally reinforced that policy to Lewis on several occasions, Lewis said.
Lewis said she did not learn until later that when she reported information to Segar, Segar did not always forward the information to the Title IX office. Instead, Lewis said, Segar decided on her own that certain allegations “weren’t Title IX issues” or didn’t warrant an investigation.
Such was the case, Lewis said, when she reported dating violence allegations against then-LSU wide receiver Drake Davis to Segar and Ausberry in 2016.
KIM KLEMENT, USA TODAY SPORTS
Neither Segar nor Ausberry took that information to the school’s Title IX office. Lewis didn’t find out about that until two years later, when Davis’ victim, Calise Richardson, filed a complaint with the Title IX office saying LSU never investigated her claims.
Segar and Ausberry denied to the school’s Title IX investigator that Lewis shared the information with them. Segar told the investigator that Lewis never reported any Title IX issues to her, the investigation report shows. LSU found Lewis responsible for violating policy by failing to report the information to the Title IX coordinator.
Segar told Husch Blackwell that Lewis had, in fact, reported many Title IX issues to her, and that the investigator must have misquoted her in his report.
Lewis appealed the Title IX decision and continued fighting the ruling with LSU’s human resources office even after her appeal was denied. As part of that effort, Lewis and her attorney sent Jennifer Normand, LSU’s human resources director, letters detailing the abuse and retaliation she said she’d endured.
Normand agreed to remove the disciplinary action from her file, but LSU never investigated her complaints, said Lewis and the Husch Blackwell report. Husch Blackwell found no one at LSU except Lewis has been disciplined for failing to report a Title IX offense.
Richardson told USA TODAY that although Lewis may have been retaliated against, she should be held accountable for the way she treated her. Richardson said that in 2016, Lewis and her assistant, Keava Soil-Cormier, laughed at her when she told them she was scared of Davis and told her she could go to the police if she wanted to ruin his life.
“If what Sharon says is true, then I support her pursuit in fighting for her own justice,” Richardson said. “On the other side of it, I deserve my own justice in the form of her being held accountable for her actions towards me. One does not cancel out the other.”
Lewis denied laughing at Richardson and said she reported “everything” to Segar and Ausberry. Soil-Cormier previously declined to comment.
A trio of Senate Democrats unveiled a proposal Monday to raise taxes on multinational corporations as lawmakers begin to refine their plans to pay for President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package.
The framework released by Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (Ore.) and fellow tax writers Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Mark Warner (Va.) generally agrees with what the administration proposed last week when it called for a host of tax hikes on corporations, though it differs on several points and includes additional details.
It delves into the specifics of the U.S.’s international tax system, endorsing Biden’s call to hike the tax rate on multinationals’ income from intangible assets like patents, known as GILTI. But the lawmakers floated the possibility of increasing it to match the tax rate companies pay in the U.S., which would go further than what Biden proposed. He offered a 3:4 ratio between the two.
Their plan also endorses Biden’s proposal to change how companies calculate the tax so they can’t average their GILTI tax bills across all of their overseas operations, which tends to reduce their tax bills. But while Biden proposed requiring companies to calculate the tax on a country-by-country basis, the senators suggest allowing businesses to divvy up their bills between high-tax and low-tax countries, on the theory that would be easier to administer.
Biden speaks to media about Republican opposition to Infrastructure Plan
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And while Biden proposed blowing up another tax known as the Base Erosion and Anti-Abuse Tax and killing an export incentive known as Foreign Derived Intangible Income, the tax writers would keep both but make a number of changes.
“The international tax system should focus on rewarding companies that invest in the US and its workers, stop incentivizing corporations to shift jobs and investment abroad, and ensure that big corporations are paying their fair share,” the nine-page framework says.
“Not only would these reforms make our international tax system better, they can raise revenue necessary to invest in America.”
The plan comes as Democrats lean into tax increases on big corporations to generate the revenue to pay for their infrastructure plan.
The man who was in the vehicle with George Floyd last Memorial Day before his struggle with police officers was expected to appear before the court Tuesday for a hearing over potential testimony in the murder trial of former officer Derek Chauvin.
Morries Hall has been subpoenaed to appear as a witness in the trial, but he filed a motion late last month saying he would refuse to answer questions if he’s forced to testify. He was expected to appear via Zoom.
Meanwhile, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo told jurors Monday that Chauvin’s restraint of Floyd “absolutely” violated department policy. He said that the restraint should have stopped “once Mr. Floyd stopped resisting” and “once he was in distress and verbalized it.”
Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Floyd, a Black man, died in police custody on May 25, 2024, after Chauvin, who is white, pinned his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.
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Court was expect to resume at 8:30 a.m. CST Tuesday for a motions hearing, with jurors back in the courtroom at 9:15 a.m.
Jurors have heard from more than 20 witnesses.
Katie Blackwell, who led Minneapolis Police Department trainings, said the department trains officers to use one or two arms during a neck restraint – not a knee.
The doctor who provided emergency care to Floyd at Hennepin County Medical Center testified Monday that at the time of the incident, he believed Floyd died from a lack of oxygen, rather than an overdose or heart attack.
Public safety officials said Monday the trial has been going “smoothly,” and that there’s nothing to indicate “that there is an imminent threat to the court proceedings or to either of the Twin Cities.”
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Morries Hall, who was in vehicle with George Floyd, to appear before the court
Morries Hall was expected to appear before the court Tuesday for a hearing over potential testimony. He is being held at the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility on unrelated charges.
Hall has been subpoenaed to appear as a witness in the trial. However, Hall filed a motion late last month to quash the subpoena on grounds that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against incrimination and refuse to answer questions if he’s forced to testify.
Judge Peter Cahill approved Hall’s request to wear civilian clothes and not jail scrubs for the hearing, a court filing shows.
Hall’s name came up in questioning last week. Lead defense attorney Eric Nelson asked Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, about Hall. Ross acknowledged that she told FBI investigators Floyd bought narcotics from Hall, but in court she said she “did not see it with my own eyes.”
Ross said she was in a car at a hotel while Floyd bought pills a week before his death. She said she was on the phone with him and thought she heard Hall’s voice in the background. She testified that she only learned afterward that Floyd was with Hall the day Floyd died.
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo: Restraint of Floyd ‘absolutely’ violates policy
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, who fired Derek Chauvin and three other officers involved in the incident, said Monday under questioning that he believed Chauvin was trying to employ a conscious neck restraint on Floyd, which involves using light to moderate pressure on a person who is actively resisting police, according to the department’s policy.
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But while viewing a still-frame of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck, Arradando said from the picture and Floyd’s facial expression, it “does not appear in any way, shape or form, that that is light to moderate pressure.” Arradando added: “I vehemently disagree that that’s the appropriate use of force for that situation.”
The restraint should have stopped “once Mr. Floyd stopped resisting” and “once he was in distress and verbalized it,” Arradondo said. He added that “there’s an initial reasonableness in trying to get him under control in the first few seconds” only.
In this image from video, witness Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testifies as Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill presides Monday, April 5, 2024.
“And clearly when Mr. Floyd was no longer responsive and even motionless, to continue to apply that level of force to a person proned out, handcuffed behind their back. That in no way shape or form is not backed by policy, it is not backed by our training, and it’s certainly not our ethics or our values,” Arradondo said.
Arradondo said the officers violated department policy by failing to give first aid to Floyd when he appeared to not be breathing, while they waited for an ambulance.
On cross-examination by defense attorney Eric Nelson, Arradondo acknowledged that he had not made an arrest, personally, in many years. He also acknowledged that in a side-by-side comparison of bystander video and an officer’s body-cam video, it appears that in the latter, Chauvin’s knee is more on Floyd’s shoulder blade than on his neck.
The moment in the video came at the end of the incident, after paramedics arrived and checked Floyd’s neck for a pulse. In the body-cam video, Chauvin can be seen shifting his knees and leaning back slightly.
Doctor tells jurors he believed lack of oxygen, not overdose or heart attack, was ‘most likely’ cause of death
Dr. Bradford Langenfeld testified Monday morning, telling jurors he directed the care of Floyd at Hennepin County Medical Center and spent about 30 minutes trying resuscitate him before pronouncing him dead.
Questioned by prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, Langenfeld said the paramedics who brought Floyd to the hospital did not give him any information that Floyd might have overdosed on drugs or suffered a heart attack.
Langenfeld said Floyd had some electrical activity around the heart, but no pulse. Floyd’s heart never resumed beating on its own “to a degree necessary to sustain life,” he said.
In this image from video, witness Dr. Bradford Wankhede Langenfeld, the doctor who pronounced George Floyd dead, testifies as Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill presides Monday, April 5, 2024.
Asked by Blackwell what was determined to be the cause of Floyd’s cardiac arrest, Langenfeld said: “At the time, based on the history available to me, I felt that hypoxia was one of the most likely possibilities.” Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen, which Langenfeld said he believed led to Floyd’s death from asphyxia.
During cross-examination by lead defense attorney Eric Nelson, Langenfeld acknowledged that a combination of fentanyl and methamphetamine could cause hypoxia. A toxicology screen of Floyd after his death found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system.
Biden kicked off the debate last week, with a proposal to raise corporate taxes to offset the cost of his infrastructure plan. Congress will have plenty of changes to the plan, with the House’s top tax writer suggesting last week that he will offer alternative proposals.
It’s also possible that lawmakers will ultimately end up dumping some or all of the tax increases, and tack the cost of their spending package onto the deficit.
The proposal released Monday is notable for representing a large swath of the political spectrum within the Senate Democratic caucus, with Brown at the progressive end and Warner being more moderate.
Psaki on corporate tax raise: ‘The president felt it was responsible to propose a way to pay for his proposal’
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Their framework still doesn’t have many numbers — it doesn’t propose a specific GILTI tax rate, for example. That’s because Democrats anticipate they will adjust rates according to how much money decide they need to raise.
Like the administration, Senate Democrats are working within the international tax system Republicans set up as part of their 2017 tax law, though they want to make it much tougher. The Democrats’ proposals would push it closer to a pure “worldwide” tax system in which the U.S. tries to tax companies regardless of where they are operating.
The senators want to rewrite BEAT to restore tax breaks for things like solar power and affordable housing that companies can now lose under the tax. They’re also proposing a second, higher BEAT tax bracket, along with its current 10 percent one.
“The BEAT should be reformed to capture more revenue from companies eroding the U.S. tax base, and use that revenue to support companies that are actually investing in America,” the plan says.
The lawmakers also want to grant FDII benefits to companies based on how much they spend on things like research and development and worker training in the U.S.
