Haynesworth Moves to Offense, Targets Himself

Albert Haynesworth’s agent, Chad Speck, is in a familiar position today as he finds it necessary to once again defend his client against yet another off-the-field accusation. This time, however, it’s not a simple traffic-related offense. Instead, the Washington Redskins defensive tackle stands accused of sexual abuse for fondling the breast of a 23-year-old waitress at the W Hotel in Northwest Washington. Our analysis of the case suggests Speck has his work cut out for him.

While Speck and Haynesworth’s attorney, A. Scott Bolder, have been vocal in their denial of inappropriate behavior on Haynesworth’s part, deceptive behavior evident in their statements has led us at Sports Intelligence Analysts to conclude there may be some truth to the accusation. While both sides wait for a grand jury to convene to determine if charges will be filed against Haynesworth, we have again been provided with an opportunity to explain some of our deception detection methodology, much as we did in an earlier blog posting when discussing Haynesworth’s on-the-field behavior.

Following the abuse accusation, Speck was the first to comment publicly on his client’s possible culpability, as Haynesworth has had the good sense to remain silent. In so doing, Speck stated, “There seems to be no truth to those allegations,” and followed up with statements about legal action against those who had accused Haynesworth of this abuse. Speck’s qualified statement that there “seems” to be no truth to the allegations is not a denial, as he has tried to convince us it is, but is instead a simple statement which allows for wiggle room if Haynesworth is indicted on the charges. Qualified statements are often used to allow for a change of direction if the facts show that someone is culpable. In its simplest terms, it clearly indicates that Speck lacks confidence in Haynesworth’s innocence.

But more obvious statements allowing for wiggle room are identified in a number of interviews in which Bolder has participated in recent days. Bolder uses such techniques as attacking the accuser and using convincing and qualified statements to try to convince us of Haynesworth’s innocence in the alleged abuse. These types of statements can be used by those in the legal profession who want to leave room to see how the evidence develops while at the same time make those not trained in analysis believe they are forthright statements of denial. He states that Haynesworth is a target, though he fails to identify specifically who is targeting him. In addition to these behaviors, in his interview with Fox 5 Sports Director Dave Feldman on Wednesday night, he continuously and vehemently stated “denied” in response to every accusation Feldman put forth. While Bolder’s answers of “denied” were designed to convince Feldman and the listener that Haynesworth did nothing wrong, what we saw instead was just the opposite: a man trying to deflect the blame from his client to the victim. In reality, literalness is important in the Sports Intelligence Analysts world, and saying the allegations are “denied” is NOT the same as saying Haynesworth DID NOT DO IT.

Bolder states in his interviews that he has done his OWN investigation and has talked with several potential witnesses who “were not part of the party, but were nearby and close and none of them are reporting that these allegations are true.” Bolder does not, however, claim that these witnesses said the allegations were NOT true, nor did they say that Haynesworth DID NOT DO IT. There is a definite difference between saying “none of them are reporting that these allegations are true” (it could simply mean they didn’t see anything because they weren’t paying attention to the Haynesworth party) and saying that Haynesworth did not exhibit the behavior of which he is being accused. Again, both Speck’s and Bolder’s statements indicate to us that there is much more to the story than they want us to know and far more digging is needed by those in the media and the authorities. Furthermore, they are attempting to get ahead of the prosecution and are trying to win the day with public sympathy, hoping that Redskins fans will side with and protect Haynesworth. It will be interesting to see what the grand jury’s decision will be. But regardless of the decision, with all of Haynesworth’s legal issues of late, he should give serious consideration to keeping Bolder’s number on speed dial.