Jets legend Joe Namath, similar to disgraced Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, covered up sexual abuse at his facility, according to court papers filed by a man who says he was assaulted there 51 years ago.
Philip Lyle Smith, 64, recently told The Post about his ordeal at Joe Namath’s Instructional Football Camp, speaking publicly for the first time about the allegations he details as a “John Doe” in an ongoing Brooklyn lawsuit.
Smith said her alleged sexual predator was Brooklyn Poly Prep Country Club football coach Philip Foglietta, later revealed to be a serial pedophile who abused scores of students at the tony school.
Foglietta, who died in 1998, was allegedly allowed to repeatedly sexually assault Smith at the camp starting when the boy was just 12, the married Florida real estate broker said in court papers — alleging to The Post that Namath and other defendants claim is “an enabler and protector of pedophiles.”
“At that time, Joe Namath was my idol,” Smith told The Post. “And he went from being my hero to zero in my life.”
Philip Lyle Smith (right) claims in a lawsuit that Jets legend Joe Namath (left) was negligent when he was sexually abused by a coach at one of Namath’s football camps 51 years ago. Available
Smith alleged that Namath’s negligence was similar to that of the late Paterno, who was accused of knowing that trusted aide Jerry Sandusky had sexually abused boys.
“This case is the same about many adults who hold positions in [camp] including Joe Namath and [ex-Jets defensive back and camp partner John] Dockery, knowingly, condoned and covered up known sexual abuse at the camp, abuse that had a lasting effect on Doe,” according to the allegations in amended court papers filed in 2021.
Smith’s lawsuit alleges that while Foglietta was grooming and abusing him, he received special benefits at the camp, including induction into the Jets Hall of Fame.
Smith (pictured) claimed he was abused at the camp by Brooklyn Poly Prep Country Club football coach Philip Foglietta, who was later revealed to be a serial pedophile. Available
For example, Smith ate food in the camp lunchroom with Namath and Dockery, other visiting NFL players and coaches and instructors, he alleged.
“It was a dream come true for a 12-year-old,” Smith said. “[Foglietta] always made sure Joe Namath threw me at least one pass almost every day and said hello to me almost every day.
“I feel very special,” he said.
According to Smith’s suit, “Some campers assumed that Doe was Joe Namath’s nephew and made comments to him about this.
“This is because Foglietta makes sure Joe Namath is always aware of Doe’s presence and Doe gets special attention every time Joe Namath appears.”
Foglietta (left) and Smith (center) at football camp in 1972. Provided
Smith said other Poly Prep participants at the Vermont camp were jealous, asking why he was “taking up so much of Joe’s time.” He said Foglietta used preferential treatment to justify the sexual abuse.
“Every night he would say, ‘See what I did? . . . You have a picture with so-and-so. . . Joe talked to you. . . How could you do it without me?’ ” Smith said. “That was part of his grooming to abuse me.”
Smith said that at the time, Namath was “one of the greatest athletes in the world” and Smith’s mother thought he would be safe there.
“It is my mother’s place [thought] will create beautiful childhood memories for me,” he said. “Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way.”
Namath directed Smith at the camp in Vermont.prepared
Smith said the trauma convinced her not to have children because she feared any children she had might suffer the same fate.
His 2019 negligence suit targets “Broadway Joe,” the camp and Dockery, among others.
Smith’s case was filed under the now-expired Child Victims Act, which temporarily reopened the statute of limitations that allowed alleged victims to file civil suits against institutions and individuals.
“My innocence was robbed from me at the age of 12 at Joe Namath’s Football camp in Wilmington, Vt., at the Sitzmark Lodge in July 1972,” Smith told The Post, accompanied in the interview by attorney Arthur Middlemiss.
Poly Prep admitted that Foglietta (pictured) preyed on dozens of students at the school.
Smith, who attended Poly Prep at the time, explained he went to Namath’s football camp as an “invited guest” of Foglietta.
According to the lawsuit, Poly Prep later discovered — and admitted — that Foglietta had preyed on male students for years and eventually settled a massive lawsuit and sent letters of apology to alumni, including Smith.
Smith claims in his lawsuit that camp supervisors did nothing when Foglietta, who regularly took his Poly Prep players to Namath’s summer camps in Vermont and Massachusetts, insisted Smith sleep in his room.
Namath and Dockery should have known about the sleeping arrangement, the amended complaint said.
Foglietta told Smith to sleep on his bed, the plaintiff said.
Folgietta (left) made Smith (center) sleep in his room at the camp — where the alleged abuse began. With conditions
Smith said his own presence at the camp was unusual because most of the participants were older high school students.
Other Poly Prep students were lying in several rooms, the lawsuit alleges. He said he expected to sleep in a room with them but Foglietta told him, “’Oh, you’re not paying, so you can’t stay in a room with all the Poly guys. You will stay with me in my room.’”
Smith said the coach seemed to like him after his father died – but it’s clear now that Foglietta “groomed” him, with the abuse beginning in a room at Namath’s camp in 1972 and continuing during training camps in 1973 and 1975.
According to the complaint, Namath and his camp partner John Dockery (not pictured) should have known about Foglietta making Smith sleep with him.
She said that on one occasion, Foglietta asked a counselor to send a crib to her room to show Smith would sleep separately from her despite still being in the same room. Coaches never take cribs, Smith said.
“He spent the whole night with me alone. The physical sexual abuse started there with his actions, started with the massage, then it became a nude massage where I was naked. He got naked, and it escalated from there, and it went on all week,” Smith said.
Smith said Foglietta would masturbate in front of him and the trainer “tried to masturbate me, but I’m 12 years old – I couldn’t get an erection.”
Foglietta died in 1998.
“He would actually show me porn and porn magazines to try to wake me up in the Joe Namath camp,” Smith said. “In the morning it was like nothing happened. ‘Come on, Phil, we’re going to breakfast.'”
Smith said Foglietta “manually violated me for the first two to three years” at the Namath camp.
Smith said he kept quiet about the abuse for 45 years — until his wife noticed he was acting irritated while watching the news about the Penn State sex-abuse scandal and confronted him.
Smith said Namath went from “my hero to zero in my life” after the abuse under his watch. Available
For the first time, she admitted that she was a victim of child sex abuse, she said.
“If my coming forward could just convince one survivor that it’s OK to go out into the sun and that they deserve all the joys of life and that they shouldn’t live in the darkness of guilt and self-loathing with feelings of inadequacy. . . then I will know that my actions are meaningful and not hopeless or in vain,” said Smith.
Her amended complaint, filed on July 30, 2021, accuses the defendant of negligence, inadequate security, breach of duty, assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress, and seeks unspecified damages.
Attorneys for Namath, Dockery and the camp did not respond to requests for comment.
The Brooklyn Supreme Court denied the defense’s motion to dismiss the case, and at least some of the defendants have appealed the decision as the case continues.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
