Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin and his lawyer are on the offensive.
A day after attorney Levi McCathern had the ability to watch Marriott surveillance video of the alleged interaction between Irvin and the hotel employee who accused him of wrongdoing, McCathern called the allegations “nonsense” during a press conference, via Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News.
McCathern said he was not given a copy of the video. He also wasn’t allowed to record what he saw, or to show it to Irvin. He has filed an emergency motion to force Marriott to surrender the video.
Apparently, Marriott restricted McCathern’s access without authorization from the court to do so.
“This sickens me, this sickens me,” Irvin said, in a video posted by Gehlken. “Because in this great country, it takes me back to a time where a white woman would accuse a black man of something, and they would take a bunch of guys that were above the law, run in a barn, put a rope around his foot and drag him through the mud and hang him by a tree.”
Irvin complained that Marriott ignored repeated attempts to show the company what really happened between him and the employee.
“How can I defend myself if I don’t even know what I’m defending myself against?” Irvin said.
He explained that he meets people each and every day walking into and out of hotel lobbies during football season.
“This just blows my mind that in 2023, we’re still dragging and hanging brothers by a tree,” Irvin said. “That blows my mind that I have no opportunity to defend. I don’t even know what I’m defending.”
Irvin later reiterated that he knows he didn’t do anything wrong. If he didn’t, and if Marriott can’t show that he did, Marriott will have a big problem.
Then again, it already feels like Marriott has a big problem, based on the way Marriott has been dealing with the situation.