Patrick Reed's Name-Clearing Affidavit: “Please note that this is not an affidavit.”
Patrick Reed and his lawyers cooked up a sitdown with Golf Channel's Todd Lewis to put to bed allegations by writer Shane Ryan of unlawful behavior while in college (theft namely).
The key to his name-clearing effort: affidavits from his former coaches at Georgia and Augusta State which, it turns out, weren't exactly sworn statements of fact.
Stephanie Wei, obtaining the documents through the Georgia Open Records Act, writes:
Well, the “affidavit” from Coach Haack has been obtained under the Georgia Open Records Act, which was made possible because Haack used university counsel. Note that when the document was sent, the Georgia legal affairs representative wrote, “Please note that this is not an affidavit.” (Emphasis mine.) According to a legal affairs officer, the distinction is that an affidavit would have to be sworn officially under oath and notarized for use in court—this document is far more informal. Haack himself confirmed that this is the only document he signed for Reed’s attorneys."
Wei goes on to reveal some word-parsing by Reed's Georgia coach that takes game-playing semantics to a new level, at least for college golf.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at 09:22 PM
Reader Comments (44)
It's as if they don't want to throw him under the bus (maybe, simply to avoid legal issues, not out of fondness for him), but they do not wish to lie, either.
It will be interesting to see how far this advances legally, whether Reed's attorneys charge Ryan with libel. Should that occur, it may be highly entertaining for those of us who follow pro golf, but a PR nightmare for the PGA Tour.
I stand corrected. Agreed, It is a PR nightmare for Reed.
However, I would term it at least a nuisance for the Tour. They want their stars portrayed as humanitarians, as heroes, not liars or thieves (or, even worse, golf cheats).
I am now re-thinking my take on Tiger - maybe he isn't such a bad role model.
Reed is forever tainted, the question becomes does his fighting make the taint more or less smelly. I sense that it is early in this saga.
As to what is real and what is BS- I just cannot help but wonder how much jealousy comes into play on the other players statements and deletes. You know put it out there to create doubt, and the delete it to no be accused of slander. GOP 101.
And those of you who don't like the way Reed talks/smiles- I mean -really? for that he is guilty of cheating and theft? Really? Pretty small minded.
So where's the doubt?
Are we suggesting Haack signed a false statement?
Still patting myself on the back.
On the other hand, I wonder how someone without a FT job can afford to travel like she has, to have an apartment in NYC, and to manage to play the courses she gets to play. While I suspect that Family Money is behind part of it, there is no doubt that she is a networking machine.
A woman in a similar (?) blogging and website status as Wei, but with also a cable television show, Ree Drummond, makes over a million per year just on her website. Yowza.
I'm not seeing a smoking gun at all. Just a jerk kid that nobody likes being accused by other kids that are what? angels themselves? Maybe they just hated him, were kinda jerks themselves and this story spun out of control. It happens.
Reed was a smug, arrogant pr!ck when he was younger. News flash - most of us were.
Get a life.
I don't claim to know the guy or his character beyond the tabloid-type BS that I read about him.
Speak for yourself. Most kids are not.
On another subject, legally speaking, if Dustin Johnson was not suspended by the Tour for violations of the drug policy why isn't he launching a lawsuit against Golf.com for defamation and slander?
That is probably a rhetorical question, but I'll add an answer anywho. 1) drugs and alcohol addiction are given a big pass by the general public and media if the person goes to rehab, etc. so it is not serious on the scale of serious wrongs 2) since the above entities already believe that he had a problem, even if not true, he cannot gain anything significant from a suit. 3) Getting to what your question implies: the allegations are most likely true. His wife / fiancé had a reputation as an alleged big-time partier before she met DJ, so I wouldn't be surprised if she allegedly introduced him to the leaf from Columbia. Add multiple reasons and variations for him allegedly getting on the bottle or pills or substances.