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A lawsuit was filed against the New York Giants by their former video director in the fallout following an alleged physical altercation involving two other employees at the team's facility. Dave Maltese was fired in March for what the suit describes as "retaliatory purposes" in violation of CEPA, New Jersey's whistleblower statute. He claims this was a result of the complaint and report he filed following an alleged physical assault and attack he witnessed by current Giants director of football data and innovation Ty Siam against assistant video director Steven Venditti. Siam is known to be the head of the Giants' analytics department and has on multiple occasions over the past 16 months been praised publicly by general manager Dave Gettleman for his work. But Maltese also claimed in the suit filed to the Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen County, that Siam had engaged in threatening behavior toward him and there was a pervasive and continuous pattern and culture of violence in the workplace by Giants management. The suit also mentions a physical attack against Maltese by former video director John Mancuso and another incident in 2004 where he claims to have been "ragefully tackled" by former assistant coach Dave DeGuglielmo. The most recent alleged incident between Siam and Venditti occurred in September. Maltese said he reported it to higher-ups later that day. In a subsequent meeting within the week, Maltese claims senior vice president and general counsel William J. Heller adopted a tone that was threatening and retaliatory and strongly suggested he was developing a "performance issue" as a pretext for his termination. The suit states that the plaintiff was told that Siam, who was promoted to his current position last July according to a news release by the team, would be given a different position within the Giants' organization. He would no longer be supervising the video room, but was not suspended or fired. Siam's title, however, has not changed, according to the team's website. Maltese is seeking economic damages for wages lost, fringe benefits, retirement and pension plans. He's also seeking compensatory damages for pain, suffering, stress, humiliation, mental anguish, emotional harm and personal physical injury and physical sickness, medical expenses as well as damage to his reputation and loss of income stemming from the situation in addition to attorney and court fees resulting from the case. "We are aware of the civil filing by a former employee and are prepared to aggressively defend the organization and its employees against the meritless claims," the Giants said in a statement. "Beyond that, we do not intend to make further comment on this matter."
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