Jets legend Joe Namath covered up sexual abuse at his facility, according to court documents filed by a man who says he was assaulted there 51 years ago.
Philip Lyle Smith, 64, recently told The Post about his horrific experience at a Joe Namath football camp, speaking publicly for the first time about claims he detailed as a “John Doe” in an ongoing lawsuit in Brooklyn.
Smith said her alleged sexual predator was well-known Brooklyn Poly Prep Country Club football coach Philip Foglietta, who was later revealed to be a serial pedophile who abused dozens of students at the posh school.
Foglietta, who died in 1998, was allegedly allowed to repeatedly sexually assault Smith at the camp, beginning when the boy was just 12 years old, the married Florida real estate broker said in court documents, claiming to The Post that Namath and Other defendants in the lawsuit were “facilitators and protectors of pedophiles.”
“In those days, Joe Namath was my idol,” Smith told The Post. “And he went from being my hero to being a zero in my life.”
Philip Lyle Smith (right) claimed in a lawsuit that Jets legend Joe Namath (left) was negligent while a coach sexually abused him on one of Namath’s football fields 51 years ago.
Smith alleged that Namath’s negligence is analogous to that of the late Joe Paterno, who was accused of knowing that trusted aide Jerry Sandusky had sexually abused young boys.
“This case is also about the many adults in positions of power at the [camp] including Joe Namath and [ex-Jets defensive back and camp partner John] Dockery, who knew, tolerated and covered up known sexual abuse at the camp, abuse that had a lasting effect on Doe,” according to the allegations in amended court documents filed in 2021.
Smith’s lawsuit claims that while Foglietta groomed and abused him, he received special benefits at camp, including the Jets Hall of Famer’s participation.
Smith (pictured) claimed he was abused at camp by Brooklyn Poly Prep Country Club football coach Philip Foglietta, who was later revealed to be a serial pedophile.
For example, Smith ate in the camp dining room with Namath and Dockery, other NFL players who came, and the coaches and instructors, he says.
“It was a dream come true for a 12-year-old kid,” Smith said. “[Foglietta] I always made sure Joe Namath threw me at least one pass almost every day and greeted me almost every day.
“I felt very special,” he said.
According to Smith’s lawsuit, “Some campers even thought Doe was Joe Namath’s nephew and made comments to that effect.
“This was because Foglietta made sure that Joe Namath always acknowledged Doe’s presence and that Doe received special attention whenever Joe Namath appeared.”
Foglietta (left) and Smith (center) at football camp in 1972.
Smith said other Poly Prep participants at the Vermont camp were jealous and asked why he was “taking up so much of Joe’s time.” He said Foglietta used preferential treatment to justify sexual abuse.
“Every night he said, ‘See what I did? . . . You have photos with so-and-so. . . Joe talked to you. . . How can you do that without me? “Said Smith. ‘That was part of preparing him to abuse me.’
Smith said that at the time Namath was “one of the best athletes in the world” and that Smith’s mother thought he would be safe there.
“It was a place where my mother [thought] “It would create wonderful childhood memories for me,” he said. “Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way.”
Namath instructing Smith at the Vermont camp.
Smith said the trauma convinced him not to have children because he feared that any children he did have would also suffer his fate.
His 2019 negligence lawsuit targets “Broadway Joe,” the camp and Dockery, among others.
Smith’s case was brought under the now-expired Child Victims Act, which had temporarily reopened the statute of limitations allowing alleged victims to file civil lawsuits against institutions and individuals.
“I was robbed of my innocence at the age of 12 at the Joe Namath football camp in Wilmington, Vermont, 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 was attending Poly Prep at the time, explained that he went to Namath football camp as a “guest” of Foglietta.
According to the lawsuit, Poly Prep later discovered, and admitted, that Foglietta had preyed on male students for years and ended up settling a huge lawsuit and sending an apology letter to former students, including Smith.
Smith claims in his lawsuit that camp supervisors did nothing when Foglietta, who regularly took his Poly Prep players to Namath summer camps in Vermont and Massachusetts, insisted that Smith sleep in his room.
Namath and Dockery should have known about the sleeping arrangement, the amended complaint says.
Foglietta made Smith sleep in his bed, the plaintiff said.
Folgietta (left) made Smith (center) sleep in her room at the camp, where the alleged abuse began.
Smith said his own presence at the camp was unusual because most of the participants were older high school students.
The other Poly Prep students were housed in some rooms, their lawsuit states. She said she hoped to sleep in rooms with them, but Foglietta told her: “’Oh, you’re not paying, so you can’t stay in the room with all the Poly kids. You will stay with me in my room.’”
Smith said the coach seemed to take a liking to him after his father’s death, but that it is now clear that Foglietta “groomed” him, and that the abuse began in a room at Camp Namath in 1972 and continued during seasons at the camp in 1973. and 1975.
According to the complaint, Namath and his campmate John Dockery (not pictured) should have known that Foglietta was forcing Smith to sleep with him.
He said that one time, Foglietta asked counselors to send a cot to his room to indicate that Smith would sleep separately from him, although still in the same room. The coach never recovered the cot, Smith said.
“He was alone with me all night. The sexual abuse started physically there with her actions, it started with massages, then it turned into naked massages where I was naked. She got naked and from there the situation escalated and lasted all week,” Smith said.
Smith said Foglietta masturbated in front of him and that the coach “tried to masturbate me, but I was 12 and couldn’t get an erection.”
Foglietta died in 1998.
“He would even show me pornography and pornographic magazines to try to turn me on at the Joe Namath camp,” Smith said. “In the morning it was as if nothing had happened. ‘Come on, Phil, we’ll go to breakfast.’”
Smith said Foglietta “manually raped me for the first two or three years” at Camp Namath.
Smith said he remained silent about the abuse for 45 years, until his wife noticed him acting irritably while watching the news about the Penn State sex abuse scandal and confronted him.
Smith said Namath went from “my hero to a zero in my life” after the abuse under his watch.
For the first time he confided that he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, he said.
“If my presentation can only persuade a survivor that it is okay to come out into the sunlight and that he or she deserves all the happiness in life and that he or she should not live in the darkness of guilt and self-loathing with feelings of inadequacy … . . then I will know that my actions were meaningful and not desperate or in vain,” Smith said.
Their amended complaint, filed on July 30, 2021, accuses the defendants of negligence, inadequate security, breach of duty, assault, battery, and causing emotional distress, and seeks unspecified damages.
Lawyers for Namath, Dockery and the camp did not respond to requests for comment.
A Brooklyn Supreme Court denied a defense motion to dismiss the case, and at least several of the defendants have appealed that decision as the case continues.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn