LSU football coach Ed Orgeron said on Tuesday in a written statement submitted to a Louisiana state senatorial committee that he considered the former withdrawal of Derrius Guice’s alleged sexual harassment of Gloria Scott in 2017 as “ completely unacceptable, ” but denied ever having directly with Scott. spoken.
Orgeron’s statement contradicts part of what Scott told the committee on March 26 when she recalled working as a security guard at the Superdome in New Orleans in December 2017 when Guice, then an LSU running back, approached her and told her in front of his friends that ‘I like to have sex with older women like you’ and ‘I want your body’.
Orgeron submitted his written statement following a request from the Louisiana Senate Select Committee on Women & Children to respond to Scott’s allegations.
In a letter to Orgeron, Senator Regina Barrow, who chairs the committee, wrote: “As the leader of the LSU football team, it is critical that your agency takes these matters seriously and acts accordingly to ensure safety and well-being. of the students it serves. “
The committee began its hearings in the wake of the Husch Blackwell report, released in March, which detailed LSU’s handling of sexual assault allegations and Title IX-related incidents.
The purpose of the committee is to make policy recommendations to address allegations of sexual assault in Louisiana colleges.
Scott, who said she was humiliated by Guice’s alleged comments, told lawmakers that Orgeron was calling her offer to have Guice apologize. Scott said Orgeron asked her, “Please forgive [Guice] because he is a restless child. “
Scott said she had told Orgeron and LSU officials she wanted Guice to be banned from playing in the Citrus Bowl on January 1, 2018. But Guice was allowed to play, and she said she had never heard from Orgeron again.
In a statement, Orgeron said he tried to call Scott to get Guice to apologize, but a man answered the phone. Orgeron said the man wouldn’t put Scott on the phone unless the coach made a commitment to suspend Guice, which he said he couldn’t do until he spoke to the university and obtained more information.
Orgeron wrote that he “remembers about hearing” that the same man who claimed to represent Scott had demanded financial compensation from LSU and that those “allegations were corroborated with multiple audio recordings and electronic correspondence.”
ESPN has obtained copies of the correspondence between the man claiming to represent Scott, an AAU coach named Cleavon Williams, and LSU administrators.
In the footage, Williams says Scott wants Guice to be banned or the school to pay to keep the story quiet. Williams asks LSU administrators Miriam Segar and Verge Ausberry, “What’s the value of Derrius Guice playing in the Citrus Bowl?”
But there is no evidence that Scott himself demanded money from LSU.
Instead, Williams writes in a text that he spoke to Scott’s grandson and that they have decided to compensate $ 100,000 for “public embarrassment and sexual harassment.”
When approached by ESPN on Monday, Scott repeatedly denied ever asking for money.
She said she had asked Orgeron, Segar and Ausberry to suspend Guice as punishment for “making fun of me.”
“I was looking for nothing but that,” she said.
Orgeron, who wrote to the Senate Select Committee on Women & Children rather than appearing in person, said whether he spoke directly to Scott “doesn’t change the fact that what happened to Ms. Scott in 2017 is unequivocally wrong.”
“As a leader, and as a father, son and grandson, I would like to emphasize that it is heartbreaking that Mrs. Scott was subjected to such crude remarks by Mr. Orgeron wrote. “She, along with this committee, has my word that I will remain vigilant to ensure that the LSU football program maintains a culture of integrity and compliance.”