The Dallas Cowboys paid a confidential $2.4 million settlement in May 2016 in response to four team cheerleaders’ allegations that Rich Dalrymple, the franchise’s longtime public relations chief who recently retired, filmed them as they changed clothes inside a locker room before an event in Arlington, sources confirmed Wednesday.
ESPN first reported two separate voyeurism allegations against Dalrymple, occurring five months apart in 2015. One involved Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders members at AT&T Stadium and the other a Cowboys senior executive, team owner Jerry Jones’ daughter, Charlotte Jones.
Dalrymple, who spent 32 years with the franchise, denied both accusations in a statement Wednesday. He announced his retirement Feb. 2 as senior vice president of public relations and communications.
“People who know me, co-workers, the media and colleagues, know who I am and what I’m about,” Dalrymple said in the statement. “I understand the very serious nature of these claims and do not take them lightly. The accusations are, however, false. One was accidental and the other simply did not happen. Everything that was alleged was thoroughly investigated years ago, and I cooperated fully.”
‘We’re in here!’
On Sept. 2, 2015, the Cowboys held their annual regular-season kickoff event at AT&T Stadium. Before the event, Dalrymple entered the cheerleaders’ dressing room, where, sources told ESPN, the cheerleaders, upon hearing the door open, shouted, “We’re in here!” The cheerleaders assumed that whoever had entered, presumably a security guard, quickly exited the area, the ESPN report said.
According to the cheerleaders’ same account, one cheerleader alleged seeing a man several minutes later holding a cellphone pointed at the other three cheerleaders. She stated that she approached him and immediately recognized the man, who fled quickly, as Dalrymple.
The team became aware of the incident that day and launched an investigation.
Cowboys PR consultant Jim Wilkinson told The Dallas Morning News that Dalrymple does not dispute entering the cheerleaders’ locker room, but says he quickly exited upon learning it was occupied. Dalrymple denied the voyeurism.
Wilkinson detailed the Cowboys’ internal investigation, saying it started with eight people being interviewed: four cheerleaders, two potential witnesses, a security guard outside the room and Dalrymple.
Dalrymple submitted his phone, which an independent forensics company reviewed. Dalrymple also provided both his iPhone and iCloud passwords, Wilkinson said, and it was determined that no related photos or videos were present or had been deleted. Additional interviews were conducted.
A Cowboys source declined to provide The News with any evidence, such as time-stamped keycard entries, that could corroborate Dalrymple being in the dressing room for a matter of seconds.
Two lawyers who represent cheerleaders involved in the incident declined to comment Wednesday.
“The organization took these allegations extremely seriously and moved immediately to thoroughly investigate this matter,” Wilkinson said. “The investigation was handled consistent with best legal and HR practices and the investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing. If any wrongdoing had been found, Rich would have been terminated immediately.
“The cheerleaders are a vital part of the Dallas Cowboys family, and in terms of the settlement, the organization wanted to go above and beyond to ensure the cheerleaders knew that their allegations had been taken extremely seriously, and immediately and thoroughly investigated. Everyone involved felt just terrible about this unfortunate incident.”
Following the allegation, Dalrymple retained Dallas attorney George Parker, who intended to file a wrongful termination lawsuit over the incident if Dalrymple was fired without evidence of wrongdoing, Wilkinson said.
Upskirt allegation
The other allegation occurred April 30, 2015.
Randy Horton, a man described in the ESPN report as a Louisiana schoolteacher and “lifelong Cowboys fan,” said he noticed on the Cowboys’ draft-day war-room video livestream that Dalrymple captured upskirt photos of Charlotte Jones. She works as the franchise’s chief brand officer.
Horton said he and his wife saw Dalrymple snap photographs with his cellphone while Cowboys officials celebrated the first-round selection of Connecticut defensive back Byron Jones.
Horton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I’ll never forget what I saw,” Horton told ESPN. “The first time he reached out from a sitting position behind her, and she is standing with her back to him, and did it once. ... He looked at the screen, touched the screen and then did it again. The second time, he’s sitting in a chair at the corner of the table on the left and he held his phone beneath the corner of the table with the camera side facing up where she was standing. And did it again.
“I have no doubt in my mind of what it was he was doing. It was obvious.”
Facebook message
According to ESPN, Horton sent a Facebook message to Charlotte Jones about what he believed he’d witnessed. He also posted a message to that effect on a television news station’s Facebook page, and a separate Facebook user posted about having seen the same.
After the Cowboys’ human resources department received a tip weeks later, it looked into the allegation in May 2015, a team source told The News. That source said HR found no wrongdoing by Dalrymple upon reviewing the livestream video.
“The most basic common sense tells you that if Jerry Jones believed in any way that someone had even remotely done something like that to any member of his family,” Wilkinson told The News, “that person would have been fired immediately.”
Dalrymple joined the Cowboys organization in 1990.
He was 29 at the time, but despite his youth, Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson placed a recommendation on his behalf to Jerry Jones; Dalrymple and Johnson were colleagues at the University of Miami. Dalrymple came to oversee the Cowboys’ public relations staff, serving as the media point person for Jones and eight head coaches.
Staff writers David Moore and Calvin Watkins contributed to this report.
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