National Football League

Lawsuit: Saints covered up Vicodin theft

Published May. 1, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

A lawsuit filed by the New Orleans Saints' former security director accuses the Super Bowl champions of trying to cover up the alleged theft of prescription pain pills from the team's drug locker by two senior staff members.

According to a report in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the two senior staff members are Saints head coach Sean Payton and linnebackers coach Joe Vitt.

The Saints denied the allegations and accused former FBI agent Geoffrey Santini of attempting to extort money from the club.

Santini, who worked 31 years for the FBI, handled security for the Saints until August 2009, when the suit says he resigned because of a disagreement over the team's handling of the alleged theft of Vicodin pills kept under lock and key at the team's suburban New Orleans training headquarters.

Santini is seeking damages and back pay.

"He goes to work for them with this sterling reputation and leaves because he was being told to do things he viewed would constitute crimes,'' Santini's lawyer, Donald Hyatt II, said Saturday. "There are some very ugly facts here and some of those ugly facts include directives to cover up or conceal misconduct.''

Saints spokesman Greg Bensel said the allegations are false and the club will aggressively defend itself in court. Head coach Sean Payton issued a statement saying, "I have reviewed Geoff Santini's lawsuit and the unwarranted publicity it has received. I have never abused or stolen Vicodin or any other medication and I fully support the Saints' position in this matter as expressed by Greg Bensel.¿"

Bensel said Santini "threatened to go public with these unfounded charges unless we agreed to pay him an exorbitant sum of money,'' but the team refused to pay.

The lawsuit, filed in civil district court in Jefferson Parish shortly before court closed Friday evening, does not involve any players on the Saints' 2009 Super Bowl championship squad.

The suit says Saints general manager Mickey Loomis told Santini to keep quiet about the theft of Vicodin pills and who took them. The lawsuit also says Loomis told Santini to "let it go,'' when Santini strongly suggested that video surveillance of staff members improperly taking the pills be copied and preserved.

The lawsuit does not name the two staff members who allegedly took the pills. It describes one of them as taking keys from trainer Scottie Patton's office to get into the locked cabinet where prescriptions drugs were kept.

The lawsuit claims that Patton was the one who noticed that pills were missing and told Santini, and alleges that Patton and assistant trainer Kevin Magnum went along with orders to falsify records so that the amount of pills taken would be reflected in official logs as the amount that had been properly dispensed by the club.

The theft of Vicodin, a scheduled narcotic, is a state and federal offense, while any attempt to cover up such a theft also could constitute a state or federal crime. Failure to report a felony also is a crime.

Santini reported the possible violations to federal authorities on June 23, 2009. He resigned from the Saints on Aug. 16, 2009 and first alerted the Saints of his intent to sue the club on Sept. 14, Hyatt said.

"Whatever potential conduct might be criminal has been reported and is out of our hands and was reported long before we made any civil claims,'' Hyatt said.

It was not immediately clear if the NFL would be investigating the matter on its own.

"Although we have not read the complaint, we are aware of the lawsuit and that the Saints reject the claims as false,'' NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.