National Football League

Former exotic dancer sues Jerry Jones, alleges sexual assault

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:41 p.m. ET

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Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is accused of sexual assault by a former exotic dancer in a lawsuit filed in a Dallas court, Sports Illustrated reported on Tuesday.

Thomas D. Bowers, an attorney for Jana Weckerly, filed the suit in district court on Monday, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by SI. (WARNING: Document contains graphic language of a sexual nature.)

In it, Weckerly claims Jones forcibly grabbed and kissed her "sometime in May or June 2009," and performed sexual acts both on Weckerly and with another woman in the presence of Weckerly, all without Weckerly’s consent.

Levi McCathern, an attorney for Jones, denied Weckerly’s claims in a statement forwarded to Pro Football Talk on Tuesday:

"These allegations are completely false. The legal complaint is unsupported by facts or evidence of any kind. This is nothing more than an attempt to embarrass and extort Jerry Jones. This is a shakedown by a lawyer who is a solo practitioner just trying to make a name for himself. The alleged incidents would have been more than five years old. We intend to vigorously contest this complaint and expect it will be shown for what it is — a money grab. Due to the seriousness of these baseless allegations, we have also involved law enforcement."

Also on Tuesday, The Dallas Morning News reported that Weckerly, 27, is the same woman who took salacious photos of Jones with women in 2009, photos which reportedly were part an alleged extortion plot and to which Jones last month responded by saying, "Someone has misrepresented photos taken at a restaurant five years ago for their own purposes. I'm just not going to comment on it."

Those photos first came to light in a bizarre, rambling manifesto by a Kansas man who alleged the extortion plot.

The lawsuit names both Jones, 71, and Dallas Cowboys Football Club Ltd., as defendants and claims Weckerly underwent "severe emotional distress" and suffered "severe injuries as a direct and proximate result" of Jones' "extreme and outrageous conduct."

The suit also claims that Jones and the Cowboys conspired to cover up the assault, threatening, bullying and intimidating Weckerly, and demands damages of more than $1 million.