NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — An artificial turf company being sued after a report that executives knew fields might not live up to lofty marketing claims has hired the attorney who led the National Football League’s investigation into New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
Montreal-based FieldTurf has disputed that it engaged in wrongdoing, but is facing at least eight fraud lawsuits in federal courts in New Jersey, Minnesota, Texas and California, NJ.com reports.
The company has hired New Jersey attorney Ted Wells. Wells was hired by the NFL to run the “Deflategate” investigation and concluded that Brady was likely “generally aware” about the deflation of footballs in the 2015 AFC Championship game. Brady served a four-game suspension.
The lawsuits came after a review of insider company records, emails and interviews by NJ.com found that FieldTurf sold more than 1,000 fields to towns, schools and teams across the U.S. when its executives knew they were falling apart faster than expected.
FieldTurf says that it has lived up to its warranties and hasn’t hurt taxpayers.
“Going forward we will continue to take care of customers while fully defending ourselves against any attempts to take advantage of our company or to misrepresent the facts,” the company said in a statement.
Lawsuits have been filed by two school districts in California, Lake Tahoe Unified and Santa Ynez Valley, the Newark school district in New Jersey, the borough of Carteret, a soccer club in Clifton and a pet resort in Minnesota.