Mike Cerullo, the former New Orleans Saints assistant coach who presented evidence regarding the team's bounty scandal to NFL investigators, said in a letter to former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue that he has been vilified as a result of what he told the league.
In the letter, which ESPN's "Outside The Lines" obtained Thursday, Cerullo claims he has been subjected to lies regarding his alleged role in the Saints' pay-for-pain program.
"Since it became public that I told league officials about the (bounty) program, I have been vilified and subjected to slanderous lies," Cerullo wrote in the letter. "It has been said... that I 'pledged vengeance on the Saints,' and that I retracted my claims after first making them. As you know, none of that is true."
Cerullo was the one who informed the NFL of the Saints' bounty program. He wrote in an email to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello in November 2011 that he had proof the program existed.
Tagliabue on Tuesday vacated the suspensions of the four players involved in the bounty scandal -- Jonathan Vilma, Will Smith, Scott Fujita and Anthony Hargrove.
