Authorities decided in July not to charge Michael Irvin after he was accused of sexual assault. But the NFL has not yet decided whether Irvin will be disciplined.
Irvin works for the league as an NFL Network commentator, and the league confirmed to the Dallas Morning News that Irvin remains the subject of a league investigation. Dom Cosentino of Deadspin.com first reported on Tuesday that the league is investigating Irvin.
NFL Network has kept Irvin on the air while the review of his conduct is ongoing. There’s no word on how long this review might take. The league can discipline employees even when they aren’t charged, just as it can discipline players like Ezekiel Elliott who are not charged.
A 27-year-old woman told police that she was drinking with Irvin at a Fort Lauderdale bar, went to a hotel room with him, remembers having to fight him off, and woke up the next morning thinking she may have been drugged and raped. Irvin said the woman is a friend and he brought her to the hotel to make sure she had a safe place to stay because she was intoxicated.
That was at least the third time Irvin has been named in a sexual assault case, but he has never been criminally charged. In 1997 he was falsely accused by a woman named Nina Shahravan, who admitted she lied and was sentenced to 90 days in jail for misdemeanor perjury. In 2007 he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room. Prosecutors did not press charges, she sued him in civil court, he countersued for defamation, and those lawsuits resulted in a confidential settlement.
