The most recent twist in the Peyton Manning alleged sexual assault saga came Tuesday, when Sports Plus Show founder and producer Tom Stokes released a recorded phone call with who he says is Dr. Jamie Naughright. It was Naughright who accused Manning of sexual assault at the University of Tennessee in 1996. The bizarre call focused mostly on Naughright's claim that Manning is gay.
In a phone interview with Chat Sports Tuesday night, Stokes detailed how that conversation with Naughright came about, as well as the other claims that Naughright made in their conversation. Stokes is adamant that he spoke with the real Naughright, and says he has the phone records and text messages to prove it.
The Manning-Naughright issue is a lengthy and complicated one that dates back to 1994, as detailed by the Knoxville News-Sentinel. The main issue stems from a sexual assault claim against Manning, one of many incidents that Naughright detailed in a lawsuit against Tennessee that resulted in a $300,000 settlement. There were a pair of lawsuits against Manning from Naughright, stemming the alleged violation of the confidentially agreement. There was nothing on the sexual assault after 2005, until a few days following the Super Bowl.
A Title IX lawsuit was filed against Tennessee on February 9th, claiming the school created a hostile sexual environment. The Manning incident was mentioned as an example. On February 13th, Shaun King of the New York Daily News published an article based on the documents submitted by Naughright's lawyers from the defamation lawsuit. While the story has continued to garner attention, Naughright has not said anything publicly. Expect to Stokes.
According to Stokes, Naughright herself reached out to him to discuss the Manning situation.
"She got in touch with me through Facebook," Stokes said. "Two or three months ago she popped up on my friend requests and I just approved her... Anyway, a couple of months go by and I go 'that name sounds familiar.' I reached out to her and said 'hey, are you the same Jamie from the Peyton Manning story?' It was a couple days later she hit me back and said 'yeah I am.'"
Stokes said he wanted to discuss the story with Naughright and told her to call. She did, on the night of February 13th, the same day that King's story broke. Stokes recorded the conversation with Naughright as he was driving to a concert. A portion of that call is embedded below. Note: there is NSFW language used in the audio.
Stokes said he was "floored" by the details from Naughright.
"[I thought] 'I can't believe she’s saying this right now,'" Stokes said. "The only thing she’s telling me she really wants, besides money, is her life goal is to bring down the Manning family. She said ‘I want to bring down the Manning family ... I want Peyton to go online and admit that he sucks c**k.'"
Stokes originally didn't plan to release the audio. But, he said he became fed up with the treatment of Manning in the media and the acceptance of the story from a woman who he is convinced is not telling the truth.
"I wasn’t going to post anything online," Stokes said. "I really wasn’t. Because I sat on that for seven days and I only just posted that. I wasn’t going to do anything, but then I kept hearing and reading all this stuff that says 'Peyton is a sexual predator,' 'Peyton did this, Peyton did that,' and everybody is staying in her corner, saying 'poor girl.' And I just called bulls**t on that... I posted it and said 'let the cards fall where they will.' What made me decide to post it was that I was tired of hearing just one side of this."
The audio that Stokes released is one of three portions he says he has. The first, and the one embedded above, focuses mostly on Naughright's claims that Manning is gay. The other two detail a conspiracy theory that Naughright claims is occurring. Stokes says she told him that she fears Roger Goodell is out to get her. The final piece, Stokes says, features Naughright confessing to reaching out to other media members, such as Shaun King.
"I think she just looking around, because she admitted to me that she got in touch with a couple of other guys," Stokes said. "And that’s where the whole thing came in with Shaun King and that’s where I started connecting dots."
Stokes doesn't plan on releasing those other two audio files, despite requests from his "media pals" to send the Shaun King information. But Stokes won't be the only one with those audio files for much longer. Stokes says he spoke with Daniel P. Chung from the firm Gipson Dunn just before his call with Chat Sports. It's the same firm that represented Manning during the HGH accusations. Stokes says he agreed to send the firm all of his audio files. Stokes doesn't expect the firm to release the audio files, although he said they didn't tell him what they planned to do with the files.
Stokes says he didn't release the audio files for money, nor is he making up the claims. At first, he said he felt sympathy for Naughright. But after speaking with her, he's "100 percent" convinced that Manning's version is the accurate one.
The Manning-Naughright issue is a lengthy and complicated one that dates back to 1994. It began with an incident involving Manning and Naughright that has since been sealed and may have involved allegations of academic misconduct by Manning. In February 1996, there was another incident between Manning and Naughright. Manning claimed it was a mooning/prank gone wrong. Naughright said Manning placed his buttocks, testicles and rectum on her face, although the contact part was not mentioned in court documents until a few years later. However, she called a sexual assault hotline that night, as the Knoxville-News reported in 1996. In August 1996, Naughright filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Tennessee. The suit cites 27 instances, including the Manning incident. Tennessee settles with Naughright for $300,000, but only acknowledges three of the incidents as actual examples of sexual harassment. The rest, including the Manning incident, were "horseplay that could not be avoided."
Naughright would file a defamation lawsuit against Manning over a book published in May 2000. The book described her as "vulgar" and downplayed the 1996 incident, which she said led to her demotion at Florida Southern College. A settlement was reached in December 2003. Naughright would again sue Manning in January 2005 claiming Manning broke the confidentially agreement in an interview with ESPN. A documentary on Manning discusses the incident with Manning, but Manning himself did not speak about the event. Naughright filed for a dismissal of the suit in March 2005. That was the end of the incident until the Tennessee Title IX lawsuit and King's story brought it back into the public eye.
Stokes says he's simply trying to get the truth out there.
"First of all, I’m from New Orleans," Stokes said, alluding to his fandom of Archie Manning. "Second, I’ve had some issues happen with me with women in the past. It’s not fun when you’re on that side and no one listens or hears your side. They only hear the victim, the victim, the victim. It just wasn’t like that. She [Naughright] is not the victim like everyone thinks she is."
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