Shannon Sharpe’s response to a new lawsuit hinges on one major piece of evidence.
Sharpe on Monday was accused of sexual assault in a $50 million lawsuit. The Pro Football Hall of Famer responded by accusing the woman, who he identified as Gabriella Zuniga, of using a consensual relationship to try and blackmail him.
In the statement Sharpe shared Monday, his legal team alleged that Zuniga secretly recorded a video of one of their consensual sexual encounters with the intent of using it as part of her blackmail scheme. The statement alleged that the video has been heavily edited, and that Zuniga has refused to turn over a full copy of the video to Sharpe’s legal team.
“In her effort to extract a large financial settlement, Ms. Zuniga presented Mr. Sharpe with a secretly recorded video of a consensual sexual encounter,” the statement read. “We believe the video has been heavily edited and taken entirely out of context, crafted to falsely portray a consensual act as non-consensual. Ms. Zuniga has refused to provide a copy of the full, unedited version of the recording to Mr. Sharpe’s legal team.
“The edited tape that Ms. Zuniga secretly taped and showed to Mr. Sharpe during her blackmail attempt tries to falsely portray, as a result of this editing and out of context from prior text messages, that the sexual activity was not consensual. But Mr. Sharpe now believes her secret taping was all part of her planned set-up as part of her blackmail scheme, as distorted by her edited tape, a copy of which she refused to make available to Mr. Sharpe or his counsel.”
No portion of the tape has been made public by either camp. None of the reporting on the original lawsuit against Sharpe makes any mention of a tape that could be used as evidence, either.
Sharpe’s legal statement mentions the alleged tape at length, so it will clearly be a major part of any legal defense from Sharpe. If it does exist, Sharpe’s camp will no doubt want it to be turned over as part of the case. If it is found to exist in an edited form, Sharpe’s lawyers will use that as further evidence that this was all a set-up meant to get Zuniga a share of Sharpe’s massive new media deal.
