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| - Dozens of former cheerleaders for Washington's NFL team who were featured in lewd secret videos have reached confidential settlement deals with the club, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. Cindy Minniti, a lawyer representing the team and club owner Dan Snyder, told the newspaper, "The matter has been resolved." No details of the settlement terms were revealed. An NFL investigation into the team's workplace culture, being undertaken by attorney Beth Wilkinson, began in July after the Post reported 15 female ex-employees said they were sexually harassed by male executives. That investigation is "nearing its completion," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said last week. The former cheerleaders hired lawyers Lisa Banks and Gloria Allred after a Post report last August detailed the videos, copies of which were obtained by the newspaper. They were made from outtakes of 2008 and 2010 swimsuit calendar outtakes put to rock music and made without the women's knowledge. Two former team employees told the Post that former club senior vice president Larry Michael requested the videos be produced, one of them saying the footage was assembled for Snyder, who like Michael denied any knowledge of the videos. The team said Monday it is pausing off-season activity for gameday programs such as music and its 40-person cheerleading squad in the latest moves in a rebranding that began last year, when the team dropped a controversial nickname seen as offensive by Native Americans after the team's corporate sponsors pressured the club into the move. js/rcw
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