BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU head football coach Ed Orgeron again denied that he ever spoke directly to Gloria Scott, a 74-year-old security guard who accused former Tigers running back Derrius Guice of sexually harassing her in 2017.
In a letter to the Louisiana State Senate Select Committee on Women and Children, Orgeron wrote that in Dec. 2017 that a university athletic department representative told him that Guice had disrespected an older woman, and a representative for the woman asked Guice to apologize.
“I was given a number to call, I dialed, and a gentleman answered,” Orgeron wrote. “I do not recall the gentleman giving me his name.”
Orgeron adds that the representative said Scott did not want an apology and instead asked for Guice to be held from playing in the Citrus Bowl.
“I told the gentleman that I would have to get back to him. The conversation ended, as I was not prepared to suspend a student-athlete for a game without a discussion with the University and obtaining more information” Orgeron wrote.
Orgeron wrote he later remembered hearing that a man who claimed to represent Scott later called to demand monetary compensation from LSU and that the university’s lawyers were “handling the situation.”
Orgeron reiterated that he did not remember speaking directly to Scott and he did not believe the phone call lasted more than two minutes.
“At the same time it is important to say, that me speaking to Ms. Scott directly or not, does not change the fact that what happened to Ms. Scott in 2017 is unequivocally wrong,” Orgeron wrote.
Williams told The Advocate’s Brooks Kubena that he did not speak to Orgeron.
Scott, a security worker at the Superdome in New Orleans, said Guice walked up to her with his friends at an event and told her: “I like having sex with older women like you" and “I want your body,” among other vulgarities while rubbing his body.
Scott previously testified before the committee that she spoke directly to Orgeron in that phone call and that she demanded that Guice be held from playing in the Citrus Bowl. Williams told The Advocate’s Brooks Kubena that he did not speak to Orgeron.
On Monday, audio released in public records request included a 23-minute phone conversation between two LSU Athletics Department employees and Cleavon Williams, a man who allegedly represented Scott. In the recording, Williams says LSU should pay Scott money if Guice played in the Citrus Bowl.
Additional public records show that Scott took those allegations to LSU several times, leaving voicemails with the athletic department. In those voicemails, Scott talks about wanting LSU to ban Guice from playing, possibly pressing charges against him and contacting the media if LSU didn’t act. While she never mentioned money, Scott does mention Williams.
“I have no attorney hired for me. The only people that’s handling my situation with you all would be Cleavon Williams and Wendall Johnson,” Scott said in one voicemail sent in Dec. 2017.
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