Three years ago, the Saints’ Super Bowl afterglow became interrupted by a lawsuit from a disgruntled former employee, who claimed that the team’s Vicodin stash was being abused by at least one member of the coaching staff.
The ability of the Saints to force former director of security Geoff Santini’s case into arbitration pushed the case out of the public eye, causing most to forget about it and those who didn’t to wonder if anything would ever come of it. (Santini and the Saints eventually settled the claims.)
An extensive Washington Post article from Sally Jenkins and Rick Maese regarding drug use by football teams mentions that federal authorities “are weighing a hefty fine against the Saints” for failure to properly store, control, and dispense prescription medication. Three years after the fact, the DEA investigation has been completed. Prosecutors in Louisiana are assessing the case.
The evidence includes video of assistant head coach/linebackers coach Joe Vitt removing painkillers from a drug cabinet at the team’s facility.
As explained in the report, most teams now use an outside company to deliver prescription medication and to maintain detailed logs of the drugs that are dispensed.