Well, the case of the $600,000 alligator desks finally has been resolved.
And the responsible party has been, as Bily Devaney would put it, poopcanned. (I prefer it without a hyphen, Rosenthal.)
The first line to the updated article in the New York Post reads thusly, “Lie to Page Six and lose your job.” The item then explains that Claire Gozzo is gone-zo from Giorgio’s Palm Beach furniture store after claiming that Redskins owner Daniel Snyder had purchased two alligator desks and matching chairs at a grand total of $600,000.
The strangest aspect of this whole story is how in the world, if it was all indeed fabricated, Claire Gozzo selected Dan Snyder as the phantom buyer of the desks.
And for those of you who wonder why this story is even relevant, we first learned of it because the Redskins issued a release on the matter. A release explaining that owner Daniel Snyder did not spend $600,000 on desks and chairs covered in the flesh of dead reptiles. A release in which Snyder declares that he doesn’t even own alligator shoes.
That said, we can understand his sensitivity. Not only is the NFL collectively trying to cry poormouth without crying poormouth vis-a-vis the players union, but Snyder also is planning to negotiate in roughly 50 hours free-agent deals with the likes of Julius Peppers and Darren Sproles. It’s hard to nickel-and-dime in that context if in the same week word broke of a $600,000 expenditure on something so inherently unnecessary.