Ex-Dolphin Xavien Howard is accused of sending a teen an explicit photo over an abortion quarrel

Updated Jun. 7, 2024 1:16 p.m. ET

Associated Press

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Former Miami Dolphins star cornerback Xavien Howard sent a male teenager a sexually explicit photograph of the young man's mother because she refused to get an abortion, a new court filing alleges.

The allegation was made Thursday in a lawsuit filed last year by a woman who is not the teenager's mother. That woman accuses Howard, 30, of secretly recording them having sex and then sharing the recordings with others. She says Howard also shared, without consent, sex tapes she had agreed to make.

Attorneys for the woman want the teenager, who is now 18, added as a plaintiff against Howard, who was released this off-season by the Dolphins in a money-saving move and is a free agent. The teenager is the son of another woman who attorneys say also had a relationship with Howard and was recorded having sex with him. That woman has not sued Howard.

“Xavien Howard operates by intimidation and force. Where he goes, destruction follows, and the lives of two individuals have been irrevocably altered because of him,” attorneys Cam Justice and Adriana Alcade wrote in their filing.

“Mr. Howard denies the claims and looks forward to prevailing in a court of law," Howard's attorney, Ted Craig, said in a short statement.

In the original lawsuit, filed under the pseudonym Jane Doe, a woman says she dated Howard for several months in 2022. A few months after they broke up, she received an Instagram message from a woman who said Howard had sent her sexually explicit videos of himself having sex with various women, including Doe.

That woman told Doe that Howard had sent her the videos because she spurned his sexual advances. In April 2023, another woman contacted Doe, saying Howard had also sent her videos because she, too, had spurned his advances.

Doe said that she consented once to Howard recording their sexual activity, but that other videos were done secretly without her consent.

In the latest filing seeking to add the teen as a plaintiff, he says that in September 2022, his mother and Howard were fighting over her refusal to have an abortion. The woman says Howard is the child's father. The attorneys say Howard texted the teenager a photograph of his mother engaging in sex “in his ongoing crusade to debase and humiliate” the woman and caused “severe emotional distress” to the teenager.

“Howard’s conduct was outrageous (and) went beyond all boundaries of decency,” Justice and Alcade wrote in their filing.

Howard played eight seasons with Dolphins, who drafted him out of Baylor in 2016. He intercepted 29 passes in 100 games and has been selected to four Pro Bowls.

Howard’s production declined the past two seasons as he dealt with injuries. He played through groin injuries in 2022 and was limited to 13 games in 2023 because of hip and foot injuries.