Ben Roethlisberger
Gossip

Ben Roethlisberger claims that anyone with a brain can figure out the woman who's accusing him of sexual assault, Andrea McNulty, is a complete fraud.

The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, through his attorney, wants the judge to nail McNaulty's lawyer for filing a "frivolous and abusive" lawsuit.

Andrea McNulty accused the two-time Super Bowl winner of sexually assaulting her at a Nevada hotel in July 2008. She filed a civil lawsuit a year later.

Roethlisberger says they had consensual sex and that's it, and his lawyer claims McNulty's attorney knows - or should have known - her lawsuit is bogus.

Even a casual investigation of the facts would prove McNulty to be a liar, he alleges. Among other things, Ben's lawyer claims McNulty told her co-worker she wanted to have sex with Ben and for him to get her pregnant.

Roethlisberger's lawyer says the suit is "designed to harass and embarrass [Ben] and countless other individuals," adding the explicit content in her lawsuit is designed "to stir the prurient interests of the media and public."

Andrea McNulty also allegedly sent an email less than 24 hours after sex with Ben, in which she bragged about it and "looked forward to dinner" with him.

The lawsuit filed by McNulty says Ben beckoned her to his room at the hotel where she worked and would not stop sexual advances despite her pleas.

There are many inconsistencies with this account, however, to say nothing of McNulty's mental issues that have been well documented. It's very weird.

Big Ben's legal team wants McNulty's lawyer formally sanctioned by a judge, which could mean he would have to pay Roethlisberger's attorney's fees.

Ben recently rejected a bizarre settlement offer from McNulty in which she would drop the suit as long as he admitted he did it and apologized to her.

Do you believe Ben's accuser?

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is rejecting a strange settlement offer by Andrea McNulty, the former Nevada casino worker who claims the two-time Super Bowl winner sexually assaulted her last year.

Big Ben's attorney, David Cornwell, says the woman’s offer is "bizarre" and will in no way be accepted by the football star, who denies wrongdoing.

McNulty wants Roethlisberger to admit to the allegations, apologize for what he did and donate $100,000 to the Committee to Aid Abused Women, a Reno non-profit organization that offers support to domestic violence victims.

In exchange, she'll drop her sexual assault lawsuit.

Surprisingly, Ben isn't jumping at this opportunity.

In a statement Wednesday, Cornwell called the proposal by Andrea McNulty "insulting" to women who legitimately suffered sexual misconduct.

McNulty sued Roethlisberger in July, accusing him of assaulting her in 2008 in a hotel in Nevada, where he was in town to take part in a celebrity tournament.

Roethlisberger has denied the allegations, claiming they had consensual sex and that's it. According to a co-worker, McNulty even bragged about the encounter.

Other accounts suggest McNulty may be unstable, and reeling from a scam in which she was duped by the death of a fake online boyfriend. Yes, we're serious.

Why she would make such a settlement offer - basically telling him everything's okay if he just says he did it, which he admantly denies - is anyone's guess.

Perhaps because she has no chance of winning and is looking to save face any way she can? Look for this lawsuit to be thrown out altogether before too long.

Do you believe Andrea McNulty?

Emails and IMs sent by the accuser after the sexual encounter took place may prove Andrea McNulty's sexual assault allegations against Ben Roethlisberger are complete crap, the Pittsburgh Steelers star's attorneys say.

Andrea accusers Ben of forcing himself on her. He denies anything inappropriate went on. One IM she sent after the incident: "I would date Ben Roethlisberger."

Roethlisberger's attorney, David Cornwell, released a document containing emails and IMs, sent between Andrea and her fake online boyfriend "Ben the Soldier."

As reported when her allegations first came to light, Andrea McNulty was "involved" in some sense, online, with an Iraq war soldier who was not real.

The soldier, also named Ben, is rumored to have been invented by the scorned spouse of a married man she previously slept with to get revenge on her.

Which brings us to the emails that night.

Cornwell says Andrea sent a "light-hearted" email to faux Ben at 12:41 a.m. on July 12, 2008 - only about two hours after she claims real Ben assaulted her.

Ben Roethlisberger says Andrea McNulty is unstable and lying.

The lawyer says the email "proves that, rather than driving away, distraught and crying [which she claims in her lawsuit] McNulty was back at her workstation sending light-hearted emails and engaging in benign chatter with her online boyfriend."

Then, the day after the alleged incident - McNulty wrote, "This golf tournament has been really fun. Speaking of which I need to head over to a dinner with your lookalike [referring to Ben Roethlisberger] and a few others before heading out."

These e-mail revelations follow the account from one of Andrea McNulty's co-worker, who said the accuser actually bragged about sex with Roethlisberger.

Ben's lawyers claim she sent another IM to fake Ben in December of '08, saying "I would date Ben Roethlisberger." Cornwell said that "McNulty should abandon her lawsuit immediately and admit that Ben Roethlisberger did not rape her."

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is hitting back against sexual assault accuser Andrea McNulty, saying she is lying and mentally unstable.

The NFL star's lawyer unloaded serious allegations at McNulty, claiming she bragged about sleeping with Ben and told pals she "hoped" he knocked her up.

In legal documents filed Friday in Washoe County, Nevada, Ben's legal squad went after McNulty's "false and slanderous" claim - and insists she "boasted to her friends and co-workers that she had consensual sexual relations with Mr. Roethlisberger."

On top of Andrea "being happy" about sleeping with him, Roethlisberger claims after the incident, McNulty "was also not afraid or apprehensive about the prospect of an unplanned pregnancy, but expressed that she hoped that she was pregnant."

Ben's portrait of Andrea McNulty only gets worse.

Ben Roethlisberger and Andrea McNulty slept together in July 2008.

Ben blames Andrea McNulty's "alleged problems - lack of job security, need for medical benefits, need for treatment, increasing debt and lack of income" - on her "inability to do her job" at Harrah's Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada:

"[McNulty's] psychological breakdown appears to be the sad by-product of an affair with a married man whose wife concocted a scheme to have [her] fall in love with a fictional soldier and be abandoned by him to create heartbreak and instability."

The document wasn't just an excuse to bash Andrea McNulty.

Ben's lawyers have requested to move the case out of Washoe County, Nev., "for the convenience of all parties and witnesses and in the interest of justice."

So far, the judge has not ruled on their request. Suffice it to say, Ben denied any wrongdoing in his only public comments since Andrea McNulty filed suit.

Do you believe Andrea's sexual assault allegation?

Andrea McNulty, the Nevada woman who accused Ben Roethlisberger of sexual assault, boasted to a co-worker of having consensual sex with the NFL star and said she hoped he impregnated her, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Shortly after telling former Angela Antonetti about the tryst at Harrah's Lake Tahoe, where both worked as casino hosts, McNulty "expressed to me she was hoping for a 'little Roethlisberger,'" Antonetti said in a sworn affidavit.

Moreover, Antonetti said, Andrea McNulty asked her to travel to Pittsburgh in August 2008 (a month after the encounter) for a Steelers game and to try to "run into" Ben Roethlisberger. "I told her that she shouldn't try to chase Mr. Roethlisberger."

Around the same time, Antonetti said, McNulty asked her to obtain Ben's cell phone number from a Harrah's executive. She said she told McNulty it was inappropriate to attempt to contact the Pittsburgh Steelers star in any fashion.

Antonetti said Andrea McNulty was upset about a married man ending a relationship with her in mid-2007. Shortly after that breakup, she told Antonetti she'd started an online romance with "Ben," a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq.

Later, in late 2007, she said she had fallen in love with him and they had become engaged. After the 2008 golf tournament, however, the woman confided to Ms. Antonetti that the online romance was a hoax someone perpetrated on her.

She became "very emotionally distraught" and took a leave of absence from work from September until around Thanksgiving. In March 2009, McNulty told Antonetti she was going to sue Harrah's, and "the lawsuit would be big news."

Andrea McNulty's lawsuit against Ben Roethlisberger also includes a number of employees at Harrah's whom she claims tried to cover up the alleged assault.

Antonetti said she was "absolutely shocked" when she heard that McNulty claimed Roethlisberger assaulted her "because I knew [her] allegation was false."

"Because I knew that [her] lawsuit and false allegations would unfairly and unjustly hurt Mr. Roethlisberger, I wanted to set the story straight," she said.

In an e-mail response, Roethlisberger's lawyer, William David Cornwall, said: "We will let our filing speak for itself. Unfortunately, as all of our communications with Ben are confidential, it is not appropriate discuss them in any manner."

Ben has denied all allegations, calling them "outrageous."

Do you believe Andrea McNulty?

Andrea McNulty, the woman accusing the Pittsburgh Steelers star quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, of sexual assault, says she's been receiving "hundreds of annoying phone calls" since filing her civil lawsuit - including threats on her life.

She filed a police report in Nevada at the end of June, claiming her phone has been ringing off the hook with people who can't wait to call her a "whore."

Andrea McNulty also claims that some people have been threatening her to drop the lawsuit against Ben Roethlisberger or "something's going to happen."

McNulty gave up a few of the numbers to police, who advised her it would be a good idea to acquire an unlisted number of her own. Might be a good idea.

Ben Roethlisberger adamantly denies sexually assaulting Andrea McNulty.

McNulty makes some serious allegations against Big Ben, but the case boils down, in many ways, to a he-said-she-said scenario with no other witnesses.

Roethlisberger's attorney notes that no criminal complaint was lodged over the incident which is said to have occurred a year ago now. McNulty says Ben forced himself on her and would not stop, he says everything was consensual.

There is also the issue of her mental state at the time.

Do you believe Andrea McNulty?

It is deservedly called the worldwide leader in sports, but perhaps the #1 criticism of ESPN over the years has been its unabashed and frequent self-promotion.

Now, a pair of stories over the past week and ESPN's involvement in each have made the network the story - deservedly or not - and left it under fire.

First, a hotel peephole video surfaced of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, who was filmed in the nude without her consent. Andrews' representatives and ESPN acknowledged the grainy video was her and that they would seek civil and criminal action.

Erin Andrews was the victim of an abhorrent act, one no fault of ESPN's.

However, the network's reaction - particularly its banning of the New York Post after the paper printed Erin Andrews nude pics - was questionable, some feel.

The Post's gossip page ran an item Thursday blaming ESPN for its letter to the website hosting the hotel peephole video that ultimately outed Erin Andrews.

One columnist even wrote, "The fact is one person committed the crime, but all of us, including ESPN, contributed to this revealing peep at our culture."

First, there was the Erin Andrews tape. Then the Ben Roethlisberger case.

When a Nevada woman named Andrea McNulty filed a civil suit accusing the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback of sexually assaulting her in the hotel where she worked last summer, ESPN did not report it on TV or on its website.

Its reasoning: "A policy of not running stories based on civil suits without a criminal investigation or without conducting its own reporting."

ESPN claimed to be taking the high road by not reporting the lawsuit, but as it pertained to Ben Roethlisberger, many wondered if ESPN was refusing to only to stay in good standing with one of the country's most high-profile athletes.

Finally, three days after the story broke, ESPN reported it, saying it was just waiting for either Roethlisberger or law enforcement to make a statement.

Any news organization has the right to set standards by which it will report a story, of course. But the New York Times reported it, and given that it involved a sports figure, it's a little odd that the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" did not.

If nothing else, ESPN's impartiality and role in creating more news than it reports is a subject being hotly debated in journalism circles.

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger just issued a statement to the media, denying sexual assault allegations made by Andrea McNulty.

Appearing to read the statement in person at the press conference but not taking any questions from reporters afterward, Ben Roethlisberger said:

"I did not sexually assault Andrea McNulty. Saturday was the first that I learned of her accusations. Her false and vicious allegations are an attack on my family and on me. I would never, ever force myself on a woman."

"I want to fight to protect my family and my reputation."

"I'm not going to discuss my private life or this civil case in the media. I'll respond to her outrageous allegations in the appropriate forum."

"I have an obligation to our fans, my teammates, my coaches and everyone in the organization to remain focused on the Pittsburgh Steelers and I will do that."

"The allegations against me are reckless and false."

"As much as I would like to answer everyone's questions, I going to respect the legal process and I am confident that the truth will prevail."

McNulty claims Ben Roethlisberger came on to her at the Nevada hotel where she works and would not stop despite her repeated protestations that he do so.

Ben's accuser has also been experiencing a number of mental health issues since the incident. It is unclear how this may play into the civil case filed this week.

Do you believe Andrea McNulty?

Here's a video of Ben's press conference ...

Either Ben Roethlisberger accuser Andrea McNulty has painted a disturbing picture of the two-time Super Bowl winner, or she has a very active imagination.

The Nevada hotel employee accusing the Pittsburgh Steelers star of raping her last year says that she told him to stop but the football player refused.

She also alleges that she tried to report the sexual assault, but was shut down by her bosses who downplayed it and threatened her job if she spoke out.

There is also the question of the mental state of Andrea McNulty, who has been treated for PTSD, insomnia, anxiety and depression since the incident.

Is this a byproduct of what happened with Roethlisberger? Or, on the flip side, did her condition lead her to embellish what happened with the NFL star?

Below is the timeline of events, according to the plaintiff's lawsuit.

Once again, this is only Andrea McNulty's side of the story. Ben Roethlisberger denies any contact that wasn't consensual took place at any point ...

March 2003: Andrea McNulty begins work as a desk clerk at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe casino and is promoted steadily, becoming executive casino host by February 2008.

July 2008: Ben Roethlisberger checks in at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe to play in the NBC American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament on or about this date; McNulty is introduced to the Steelers quarterback by a butler there.

July 10, 2008: Ben has casual conversation with her about fly fishing.

July 11, 2008: Roethlisberger asks Andrea McNulty to come to his room to fix his TV. She obliges, cannot find anything wrong with it, and tries to leave, only to have him (allegedly) sexually assault her despite her protests.

July 12, 2008: McNulty tells hotel security chief Guy Hyder about the rape. Hyder dismisses her claims and makes some pretty crude remarks about them.

August 2008: McNulty is told that Harrah’s president John Koster will fire her if she "starts rumors" about Roethlisberger. McNulty falls into deep depression.

Continue Reading...

The woman accusing Ben Roethlisberger of sexual assault claims the football star forced himself on her at the hotel where she worked and that despite her repeated protestations and refusals, Roethlisberger would not stop.

He claims it was consensual and that the lack of criminal complaint filed by Andrea McNulty - the incident happened a year ago - proves his innocence.

In response, McNulty said she told the head of security at the hotel about the alleged sexual assault the day after it happened, but he completely blew her off and even threatened her job if she made this into a bigger issue.

The plantiff claims in her lawsuit that Guy Hyder - the chief of security at Harrah's in Lake Tahoe, Nev. - told her she was "over-reacting" and that "most girls would feel lucky to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger."

Andrea McNulty claims Hyder told her John Koster - the hotel president - will "personally fire you for starting rumors about Roethlisberger's personal life."

Hyder told McNulty, according to legal papers, that Koster would be impressed by the encounter, allegedly saying "Koster would love you even more if he knew about this ... Koster would suck his d!ck if Roethlisberger let him."

In the lawsuit, Andrea McNulty claims she assumed the incident would be investigated by security, but Hyder "did not do his job of investigating."

As for why she didn't tell the cops, McNulty claims she was "afraid of the consequences of going to police authorities since it was obvious to her that Harrah's and it's [sic] personnel ... would side with and support Ben Roethlisberger."

She also claims Harrah's employees broke into her home and ripped files off of her computer, presumably for the purpose of defending themselves in a lawsuit.

Several months later, after Andrea McNulty claims she sought psychological treatment because of the encounter, she claims she had a conversation with Hyder.

The accuser says she told Guy Hyder that she had been hospitalized specifically because of the Roethlisberger incident. Hyder allegedly replied, "I figured that was what was wrong, but I thought it was just like a date rape thing."

Andrea McNulty claims her bosses told her she was on thin ice at work. She is seeking $380,000 in medical fees plus an unspecified amount in punitive damages.