Soccer team owner receives sexual harassment protection order

Dion Earl, owner of Seattle Impact FC, Kent’s new professional indoor soccer team, received a sexual harassment protection order from a former Ladies with Impact dance team co-captain in relation to alleged sexual advances Earl made against her and other members on the dance team.

King County Superior Court Judge Chad Allred granted the protection order on Oct. 22, which prohibits Earl from making any contact with the woman. Earl also plays for the Impact, which opens its Major Arena Soccer League season Nov. 8 at the ShoWare Center.

No criminal charges have been filed against Earl. Earl declined to comment to the Kent Reporter on the order, directing questions to his attorney, Michelle Scudder.

The dance team is being represented pro bono by Jason Ritterieser and Don Heyrich of HKM Employment Attorneys, of Seattle. The firm is considering a civil lawsuit.

According to the dance team member’s deposition filed in King County Superior Court, Earl made repeated sexual comments toward her and other dancers, and called and texted them late at night. According to the deposition, some of Earl’s texts to the woman one evening included inviting her to be his personal assistant and massage therapist, and invited her over to his home to give him a massage.

The next day, the woman traveled to Earl’s house for a meeting with Impact player Gordy Gurson, the statement said. When she arrived, she said Gurson was absent from the house and Earl greeted her with “a lingering hug,” according to the court documents.

The statement claims that Earl kissed her on the face, pinned her to the floor, massaged her and squeezed her butt.

Depositions written by Earl and his wife, Laurel, claim that nothing happened that night and that the dancer fabricated the story as a way of getting back at Earl for disbanding the team.

Dance team disbands

The Ladies with Impact dance team resigned en masse several days after the alleged incident. Earl said that the dance team was in the process of being disbanded for financial reasons.

Amy David, a former director of operations for the Impact, said that Earl is trying to use legal muscle to keep the dance team from talking about the incident. David said she resigned from what she described was a “hostile working environment.”

“This is someone who doesn’t want us to talk about this and is hoping this will go away,” David said. “Earl threatens to sue people as retribution in order to intimidate them to get his way.”

David also said that Earl hasn’t paid the team for their work as dancers or employees for hours they worked.

“We’re happy to put this out there because we don’t want this to happen to someone again,” David said.

According to other sources, Earl instructed Gurson to say that Gurson saw Earl hugging the dancer goodbye and nothing inappropriate had happened. The Kent Reporter obtained a recorded cellphone conversation between Earl and Gurson, as well as text messages between the two, that corroborate the communications.

In the video, a cellphone is visibly being recorded with Earl’s name in the call line. Earl’s voice can be heard instructing the recorder to make a statement that he witnessed Earl and the dancer hugging goodbye while he was at Earl’s house. The recorder then states that the dancer called, asking him why he wasn’t at the house, and he reiterates that he never knew that she was there, too.

The recording was not used as evidence at the hour-long hearing at district court.

A series of text messages provided to the Kent Reporter supplement that Gurson hadn’t seen the dancer in the house at all and wasn’t aware she was there.

Meanwhile, Major Arena Soccer League Commissioner Kevin Milliken said that Earl will remain as owner of the Impact until any formal police action is taken. But Milliken states that league lawyers looked into the documentation of the incident and said there wasn’t enough to go on.

“No criminal charges are filed,” Milliken said. “The burden to get a protection order is pretty low. It comes in a lot of divorce cases, and the league is not going to pursue any disciplinary action at this time.

King County Sheriffs investigated the reports of sexual assault but concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence to merit an arrest or indictment.

“I really question the story now even more now that Gordy Gurson is back with the team,” Milliken added. “If the police would have filed charges, we’d have a completely different story.”

Milliken also pointed out that Earl’s court history was largely related to his divorce proceedings with an ex-wife.

Earl has a previous King Country harassment suit against him in 2011 from an acquaintance after sending her lewd messages. He also is on the Seattle Times’ list of “Coaches Who Prey” from an incident in 1997 when he allegedly tried to start a relationship with a 17-year-old student at Interlake High School in Bellevue.