QB Watson is sued again for alleged sexual assault
A woman in Houston filed a civil lawsuit against Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson on Monday, accusing him of a sexual assault and battery in October 2020.
The woman, who is going by “Jane Doe” in the suit, said Watson committed the assault ahead of a dinner date at her apartment.
According to the lawsuit, Watson, who was playing for the Houston Texans at the time, met the woman at a local restaurant, got her number and suggested that they go on a date.
The woman didn’t want to be in public with Watson,
leading her to propose the dinner date at her apartment.
When he arrived, the suit states, the woman was getting ready in the bathroom when she then found Watson naked on her bed.
The suit says he asked for a massage but the woman declined. He then allegedly sexually assaulted her.
In 2022, Watson was suspended for 11 games after more than 24 women came forward to accuse him of sexual assault and inappropriate conduct that occurred while he was getting massages.
In the summer of 2022, he reached settlements in 23 of the 24 civil lawsuits he was facing.
Watson, 28, was traded to the Browns in March 2022. He started in Cleveland’s 33-17 home loss to Dallas on Sunday, completing 24 of 45 passes for 169 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.
In the days leading up to Sunday’s game, Watson’s father, Don Richardson, and a college teammate of Watson’s, Diondre Overton, both died.
“I tried my best to just try for at least three hours to separate the two,” Watson said Monday of coping with the losses while focusing on football. “... I’m not going to use that as an excuse of why we played bad.”
Watson did not have a close relationship with his father and was raised by a
single mother, according to a 2017 interview he did with the Houston Chronicle.
Watson was close with
Overton, a wide receiver at Clemson from 2016-19. Overton won two national titles with the Tigers, and overlapped with Watson in
their 2016 national championship season.
Overton, 26, died in a shooting in North Carolina on Saturday.