WARNING: This episode contains mentions of sexual assault or sexual violence. If you or a loved one has been the victim of sexual assault, you are not alone. Call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. We are joined by Julie Scharper, Justin Fenton, and Brenna Smith, the Baltimore Banner reporters who broke the story about allegations of sexual misconduct against Ravens kicker Justin Tucker. They discuss the details of the allegations, the depth of their reporting, and the possible ramifications for Tucker that could come from this case. Plus, Greg Cote has to leave to get belly button surgery to fix his infamous umbilical hernia. We memorialize the nose on his stomach as Mike takes issue again with Gary Ferman, and we debut the newest version of the Confermaned sounder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the allegations against Justin Tucker?
And I've been a little confused that Justin Tucker at the moment is somebody who is working freely with some of the reporting that Julie Sharper, Justin Fenton and Brenna Smith have done for the Baltimore Banner here. Justin Tucker is the Ravens kicker that was until recently the most accurate kicker in league history.
He is currently facing allegations from 16 massage therapists across eight spas and wellness centers in the Baltimore area, two of which said that they banned him. The reporters now are on with us. They've been doing this reporting at the Baltimore Banner for a while here. So let's start here with Julie.
Can you just tell me, Julie, and thank you for joining us and thank you for the work that you've been doing. Can you take us on the journey of where it is and how it is this story started?
Chapter 2: How did the investigation into Justin Tucker's allegations begin?
Sure. So, you know, people say a lot that the first six massage therapists came forward, but it was really a matter of us finding them. It all started with Justin Fenton, our colleague, getting a tip from a friend who had happened to overhear at two different environments, people talking about these rumors about Justin Tucker. We did a quick search of X,
and found that there were several posts about this going back a few years, which was intriguing. I messaged one of the people who had put up one of those posts and was surprised when that person messaged me right back and said, yeah, someone I went to high school with had posted about this on Facebook a few years ago. I asked him to send me screenshots, and he did.
I contacted that woman, and she wound up being the first massage therapist that we spoke to. We later put up a post in a group for Maryland massage therapists. And through that post, we learned of many others who knew about these allegations secondhand. They were able to give us the locations of spas. They were able to give us names of people that they had heard about.
And we were able to do additional reporting that led us to the first six massage therapists who said that they had had these experiences with Justin Tucker. Also in that first story, we were able to confirm that two spas in the area had banned him. And once that first story came out, our reporting led us to other massage therapists who had similar encounters that they reported.
And also at that point, others started coming forward and saying that they too had had these experiences with Tucker.
So, Brenna, this is not just this is not folks seeking you out necessarily. There is reporting that needs to be done here in order to make a difficult thing like this happen. Right. Like this is it's journalism, but it's also activism to protect environments and strengthen numbers. Correct.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do reporters face in verifying such allegations?
You know, I think how we look at this is that when we are able to when you have such serious allegations, right, it's something that's going to take a lot of vetting and a lot of reporting to verify. So what we did as a team is each time we would have a woman who felt comfortable
discussing her allegations with us, we would then go and corroborate her story with the spa owners, with coworkers she worked with at the time, with family members or partners from the time to be able to make sure that all the details were aligning. And so I think that where our role is as journalists from being able to have such confirmation of that is it's not necessarily about
activism for us, you know, it's kind of a line that is not exactly where journalists walk. What it is is about being able to help vulnerable people tell their stories and be able to tell that in the most accurate and fair way possible. And I think that's really what our focus on in the story. We're not here to editorialize. We're not here to put our own narrative on it.
It's really about making sure we're telling the people who are brave enough to talk to us what they're saying in the most accurate and truthful way possible.
Julie, to that extent, so Justin Tucker, because of the nature of the amount of vetting that has to be done on all of this, Justin Tucker is categorically denying all of this. But it seems where there are this many women with this many similar details, it almost seems impossible to believe that this can be categorically denied.
Well, we've had two spa owners confirm to us that they had banned Justin Tucker from their establishment. We had other spa owners corroborate accounts of their employees. And as Brenna was saying, we spoke to the 16 women And we corroborated all of their accounts with other people who they had worked with at the time, with colleagues, with friends.
People had text messages going back years, social media posts. uh one of the individuals had actually contacted the baltimore sun about this many years ago and an editor here who used to be at the baltimore sun remembered that person contacting a sun reporter and sharing a similar account so there is a lot of documentation going back years and there's a lot of corroboration of these accounts
Going back to the documentation going back years, I think that kind of includes some of these Twitter allegations that have been out there, especially ones from the time of the allegations. Does that lead you to believe that it's difficult to imagine the Ravens really had no idea about any of this before the report came out?
That would be purely speculative for us to say. I do feel comfortable saying that this was This pattern of behavior, alleged pattern of behavior was an open secret among massage therapists and those who are friends with or close to people in the spa industry in Baltimore.
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Chapter 4: How do the alleged incidents impact the victims?
You would be in an intimate setting with women who could not do very much of anything about the power and celebrity you have because they're supposed to be working on this region of the body. And then there's ejaculate allegedly on the table. And some of the details here that would explain what it is that these women are dealing with because you've got the accounts of 16 of them.
Yeah, I mean, I think that the most broad overarching pattern across the allegations that we would see is oftentimes these women were pretty young, pretty new massage therapists, you know, sometimes in their first couple massages or their first couple months of working. And, you know, a common pattern that they would allege is that over a couple massages, there would be, you know,
alleged behavior from Tucker that he, you know, and how explicit can I get on this radio show?
No, you can go ahead and explain what it is that's being alleged here. Well, I also want people to understand sort of the difficulty that these women are having in terms of being able to say all of this to people because of the power structure of this is famous kicker in intimate setting.
Yeah, I think this might be a question that It would be best to answer just because she while we tag team talking to the victim, she talked to the most of them. And not only that, but she also really took the lead and being so careful about how we wrote about this and was explicit with it. Is that okay?
Yes, of course. Yes, of course.
So, Dan, the massage therapist shared a variety of allegations with us, but there were some common themes and there were many things that various massage therapists said. And we should say that most of the massage therapists did not know the others or perhaps knew one other colleague who had had an experience that they reported with Tucker.
But these were not individuals who had known each other as a group before this happened. So the massage therapist said that Tucker would come in, he would generally ask for a massage in his inner thigh area, his groin, his lower abdomen. None of that they found particularly surprising because he's a kicker, he's an athlete. And I should say that most of them were very excited to work on him.
They routinely have provided massages for other pro athletes. We're talking about some of the nicest spas in the Baltimore area. They had worked on Orioles and Ravens before. So they were very excited to work on Tucker. Most of them reported that Tucker had an erection for all or most of the massage, which they found highly unusual.
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Chapter 5: What are the legal implications and possible outcomes for Justin Tucker?
If I could chime in for a second, Tucker's team did put forward a list of about, I think it was 16 people who had worked on him in more recent years, who he said would attest to the fact that they hadn't had any issues with him. We were able to speak with some of them. They said that they had never had any issues, that he was nothing but professional.
The Ravens, interestingly, some of the people they wanted us to contact were on the Ravens staff and the Ravens would not let us speak to them. But he also provided a statement from one of the spa owners saying that she had never had any issues. So, you know, I want to make sure that we mention that as well.
What are your thoughts of the team's reaction, Justin?
My thoughts? I mean, I think that it is an evolving situation. I think that they're saying they want to see where the investigation goes. At the same time, there's a sentiment from the fans that they want to hear more from the team. The team, I think, has spoken out about having a zero-tolerance policy. They said that in relation to the Deshaun Watson allegations.
So some people are saying, well, you have a situation here. How are you going to handle it? The response to that today at the Combine was that every situation is different and it's fluid and that they want to find out more. But there are some people in town who want them to act. And, you know, I think that if the team were to cut him, they have until mid-March to make that decision.
They could, of course, say something earlier as the Jets did with Aaron Rodgers. But I think it's from their perspective, it's a situation that's still playing out.
For any of you, what are the possible eventualities here as you see them? In addition to the NFL League investigation, might there be civil lawsuits? And I'm also wondering, given the amount of time that's lapsed, are criminal charges a possibility?
Direct it to somebody because there are three of them there.
I can take that.
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Chapter 6: How are fans reacting to the allegations against Justin Tucker?
But nonetheless, there's a certain stigma around these types of things. sort of expectations of what probably goes on. I'd never received a massage myself. I didn't really understand the mechanics of like the sheet that's put over somebody. I kind of assumed it was a, you know, something small that just to make the body available to be touched and massaged, but it's actually quite large.
And so the understanding sort of how someone could maneuver themselves to expose themselves, you know, something that I don't know that everybody understands. But yeah, certainly. I mean, these are older allegations. These date back many years. I think there's a sentiment from some that's sort of like, why is this coming up now? These people must want money.
And like we spoke to earlier, he's really well liked. It's kind of interesting as a kicker. Not every city, not every team's kicker is sort of one of the most popular, visible, beloved players. But that is his place here. He's known for singing
opera at the basilica he's in these funny uh commercials for a gas station that sells really good chicken tenders uh and you know it's it's sort of a crazy thing that all of a sudden we're now discussing this uh it's coming off of a down season too and we sort of have wondered from time to time did this stuff surface now because he had a bad year um but nonetheless it's it's out there now it's kind of been out there in social media as we spoke about and um
You know, I think people are processing it in different ways. But I think that as the allegations have grown, I think we've seen sort of stronger condemnation of the notion of, you know, that this is too many at this point. You know, this is hard to deny.
Can I jump in for a second? Yes. You know, another thing that we we so Julie and I have heard back from many of the massage therapists who we spoke to about their reactions to, you know, as this news coming to light and as more and more alleged accounts are coming forward and something that they are.
Most of the women I spoke with said, and I think also most of the women Julie spoke with said, is that they're really bothered by this notion that people are saying, oh, well, they just want money. Why are they coming forward now? Everyone I spoke with made it really clear, like, this isn't about money for them. They don't have legal recourse right now.
They're coming forward because there is now like a critical mass for them to do it and to not just be the one person doing it. if that makes sense, and that we took the time as reporters to come and find them.
And the safety in numbers and the fact that we were willing to sit down and listen to them and take their accounts as credible and as something that should be looked into is really what gave them the comfortability to come forward now. And I think that a lot of there has been backlash online. A lot of people are distrustful of these claims.
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Chapter 7: What is Greg Cote's role in this episode?
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Dan Levitard. It's all about me. Stugatz. Wee! This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz. This episode of the Dan Levitard Show with Stugatz is presented by Venmo.
Greg, you owe a fine from before because your phone went off, and I don't want you to get out of here without paying the fine, even though you've been complaining about things. So just pay the fine. My phone is off. Well, no, but from before. I know it's off now. You need to turn it back on. Greg's got to leave as well. He's having some sort of belly button surgery.
He has something here on his belly button. You going down under for it? that we've seen before. What's going to happen here with this belly button surgery?
I have an umbilical hernia just above my navel and it's pretty common and it's a fairly routine surgery but I'm finally having it done.
Is this the little belly button nub that we saw once on camera? That's right.
On Freedom.
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