Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson ordered to sit for deposition in civil lawsuit

The NFL season is over for Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, but his legal issues in Texas are not.

Two days after his team suffered a 28-14 loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers in their season finale, Watson's attorney appeared in an online court hearing to try to fight off an attempt to force Watson to sit for a deposition in a civil lawsuit against him.

It didn’t quite work. Harris County, Texas, Judge Rabeea Collier ordered Watson to appear for the deposition within 90 days.

"The court is going to grant the deposition request to be held within 90 days of this order," Collier said. "The parties are ordered to confer on a date that works for counsel and all the details for the deposition."

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The hearing served as a reminder that a legal cloud is still trailing Watson even after he returned from an 11-game NFL suspension stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct during massage sessions.

The hearing was part of the 26th lawsuit filed against Watson since March 2021, when Watson was a member of the Houston Texans. Of those 26 lawsuits, 23 were resolved with confidential settlements and one was withdrawn in April 2021 a few weeks after being filed. That leaves two lawsuits pending, including this one, which was filed in October.

This lawsuit is similar to many of the others: It accuses Watson of sexual misconduct during a massage session with a woman after meeting her on Instagram. Specifically in this case, the woman says Watson pressured her into oral sex at the Houstonian hotel in Houston in December 2020.

Watson, 27, has denied the allegations. His attorney, Rusty Hardin, has said the women were lying but that there were sometimes consensual encounters. In this case, Hardin fired back in court in October showing messages they say the woman sent Watson after he allegedly pressured her into oral sex.

Some of the messages show the woman asking to meet him again at the same hotel. Others appear to be sexually suggestive.

"This obviously does not sound like a person who was pressured into performing oral sex," Hardin said of the messages last October.

Hardin said the woman hoped to secure a quick settlement from Watson and tried to increase the pressure for it by fanning publicity for her case. It is the only lawsuit filed against him after 23 others reached settlement agreements.

Hardin has asked the court to sanction the woman’s attorneys for filing what he calls a sham lawsuit. He also wanted Watson’s deposition in this case delayed until that matter could be heard. He said it was "premature" for Watson to testify in a deposition at this stage of the case, especially after the plaintiff's attorneys tried to schedule it for this past Dec. 29.

"They waited until the very last moment to file (the lawsuit) and then (tried) to do this accelerated set of discovery," Hardin told the judge Tuesday.

The woman’s attorney, Anissah Nguyen, responded to Hardin’s filing last year by raising questions about the messages Hardin’s firm said Watson received from the woman.

"Plaintiff’s Counsel concludes that the Messages appear to be fabricated in an effort to destroy Plaintiff’s credibility," Nguyen wrote in a court filing Oct. 27.

It’s still not clear if the woman has denied sending them, but her attorneys have asked the court in Harris County, Texas, to command Watson to produce a series of records, including messages between him and their client. The judge said she didn’t hear any objections to this and cleared the way for that, too.

According to Hardin, the woman agreed to be interviewed by Watson’s counsel in 2021 and provided the text and direct messages to them at that time after being subpoenaed as part of another case.

She decided to sue Watson nearly a year later and is the only plaintiff of the 26 who was not represented by Houston attorney Tony Buzbee. The lawsuits alleged Watson’s misconduct in massage sessions happened in 2020 and early 2021, when Watson was with the Texans, who traded him last year to Cleveland, which then gave Watson a five-year, $230 million contract. The Texans last year also agreed to confidential settlements with 30 women with claims related to Watson’s alleged conduct after being accused by Buzbee of enabling his behavior and failing to prevent it.

The other pending lawsuit against Watson involves plaintiff Lauren Baxley and is on course for trial at some point. Buzbee didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment about it. USA TODAY's policy is not to identify alleged victims of sexual misconduct unless they have agreed to speak out about it publicly, as Baxley has.

Watson was never arrested or charged with a crime after two grand juries in Texas declined to indict him.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Browns QB Deshaun Watson ordered to appear for deposition within days