Ezekiel Elliott is preparing to appeal his six-game suspension, and his legal team is going to aim to destroy the credibility of the running back’s ex-girlfriend in an attempt to have the ban reduced or overturned.
In order to accomplish that goal, one of the subjects Elliott’s lawyers are planning to dive into is a conversation Tiffany Thompson, the woman Elliott is accused of assaulting, had with a friend about blackmailing Elliott. According to documents obtained by Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports, Thompson pondered the idea extorting Elliott or selling sex tapes featuring her and the Dallas Cowboys star.
The NFL was aware of the exchange and wrote about it in its 160-page report:
“The League’s forensic experts also recovered evidence from Ms. Thompson’s phone that she had registered an email address titled, “ezekielelliott sex vids” during the month of August, 2016. In addition, a text message with her friend [name withheld by Yahoo] was recovered that showed them talking about their need to make more money and Ms. Thompson raised the idea of selling the sex tapes she had of herself and Mr. Elliott. Her friend [name withheld] said they should blackmail Mr. Elliott with them, they’d be “millionaires”. Ms. Thompson replied that she’d like to but was scared. When Ms. Thompson was asked about this by the League’s investigators, she stated that she did have sex tapes of her and Mr. Elliott on her phone and she did open the email account but she denied doing so to blackmail Mr. Elliott.”
Yahoo included some of the actual text messages, including one where Thompson told her friend she wants to sell the tapes but is “scared.” When the friend suggested they demand $10,000 from Elliott to make the tapes go away, Thompson replied, “10k B—- I want 20K. Go big or go home.”
As we mentioned previously when discussing the formal complaint Elliott filed against Thompson, the credibility issues likely contributed to prosecutors not pursuing a case against Elliott. However, all of this information was uncovered by the NFL in its year-long investigation, and the league still chose to suspend Elliott. That doesn’t bode well for Zeke.
