The Commanders’ kitchen currently has multiple pots at or near full boil. The next one to get there could relate to the question of whether security deposits for suites or season tickets were improperly retained by the team.
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said at the end of his Thursday press conference that there will be more developments regarding potential financial irregularities next week.
Meanwhile, the team has confirmed that letters have indeed been sent recently to customers who may be entitled to refunded security deposits.
“We haven’t accepted security deposits in nearly a decade, and we began returning deposits to ticket holders as early as late 2004,” Commanders spokesperson Jean Medina said via text message on Thursday night. “We sent a letter a few weeks ago as part of the most recent outreach to return deposits to ticket holders.”
We asked whether those who receive payment are required to sign a release of legal claims and/or a nondisclosure agreement, since there have been reports that such a request was made as a condition for receiving payment. The team has not responded to this specific question.
The issue first emerged in April, when the House Oversight Committee informed the Federal Trade Commission and multiple attorneys general (including Racine) of the alleged practice of deliberately withholding security deposits.
The wild card in this entire situation could be the potential failure of the team to surrender the payments to Maryland, as unclaimed property. Depending on the amount of time that specific security deposits have been in the possession of the Commanders, the team possibly had an obligation to surrender the money to the state. (I haven’t fully researched that issue, which is lawyerspeak for “I don’t know.”)
Regardless of how it plays out, the issue could be the next problem for the team to solve.