Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson throws a move throughout observe on the group’s coaching facility in Could in Ohio. The NFL suspended Watson for six video games on Monday for violating its private conduct coverage following accusations of sexual misconduct.

Ron Schwane/AP

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Ron Schwane/AP

Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson throws a move throughout observe on the group’s coaching facility in Could in Ohio. The NFL suspended Watson for six video games on Monday for violating its private conduct coverage following accusations of sexual misconduct.

Ron Schwane/AP

NFL disciplinary officer Sue L. Robinson has ordered Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson to be suspended with out pay for six video games, the league confirmed to NPR on Monday.

The punishment comes after 24 girls accused Watson of sexual misconduct, sparking civil lawsuits and placing the star quarterback on the sidelines in 2021. Watson settled 20 of the circumstances towards him in June.

The six-game suspension is “probably the most important punishment ever imposed on an NFL participant for allegations of non-violent sexual conduct,” Robinson mentioned in her resolution, including that “Mr. Watson’s sample of conduct is extra egregious than any earlier than reviewed by the NFL.”

Robinson discovered Watson liable for “a number of violations of the NFL Private Conduct Coverage,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy advised NPR by way of e mail.

Particularly, she mentioned the NFL had confirmed that Watson engaged in: sexual assault (because the NFL’s insurance policies outline it); conduct that poses a hazard to a different particular person; and conduct that undermines the integrity of the NFL.

The accusations towards Watson got here from among the greater than 60 therapeutic massage therapists he labored with in a single 15-month interval, from late 2019 via the winter of 2021.

Robinson mentioned that in making appointments with therapeutic massage therapists, Watson “had a sexual function — not only a therapeutic function.”

“I discover the proof ample to exhibit that Mr. Watson knew, or ought to have identified, that any contact between his penis and these therapists was undesirable,” Robinson mentioned.

Earlier this yr, two grand juries in Texas declined to indict Watson on legal expenses, clearing a path for his eventual return to the taking part in area.

Watson has the appropriate to enchantment the choice inside three days, via the NFL Gamers Affiliation. The league can even file its personal enchantment.

The NFL says it’s “reviewing Choose Robinson’s imposition of a six-game suspension and can make a willpower on subsequent steps.”

Robinson is a former federal choose who started working with the NFL after retiring from the bench within the U.S. District Court docket for the District of Delaware.

Describing the elements she weighed in deciding Watson’s punishment, Robinson acknowledged that he had “a wonderful popularity in his neighborhood prior to those occasions,” including that he cooperated within the investigation and paid restitution.

However, she mentioned, Watson — who has categorically denied doing something inappropriate through the therapeutic massage periods — has additionally not expressed regret. She additionally famous that he had not instantly knowledgeable the NFL when the primary lawsuit was filed in March of 2021.

As for the NFL star’s intentions earlier than and through the therapeutic massage periods, Robinson wrote, “Mr. Watson had a reckless disregard for the implications of his conduct, which I discover equal to intentional conduct.”

Watson was taking part in for the Houston Texans when the allegations towards him arose. In March, he signed a five-year deal to change into the Browns’ quarterback.