Falcons Fire New Assistant DL Coach LaTroy Lewis After Sexual Assault Allegations Emerge

Atlanta, GA—Less than three weeks after hiring LaTroy Lewis as their assistant defensive-line coach, the Atlanta Falcons terminated the 33-year-old assistant late Tuesday after disturbing sexual-assault allegations surfaced while he was in Indianapolis for the NFL Combine.

The club’s move came roughly two hours after the franchise acknowledged it was “gathering information” regarding claims first reported by Darko State Media’s Justin Spiro on “The Spiro Avenue Show.” Lewis, who had been on the job only 17 days, was dismissed without additional public comment, according to Fox Sports’ Greg Auman.

The accusations stem from Lewis’s previous tenure as a University of Michigan graduate assistant. An unnamed woman told Spiro she met Lewis through a dating app, after which he allegedly sent threatening messages demanding money and items valued at about $25,000. The two had not yet met in person.

Weeks later, while the woman was in Ann Arbor for work, Lewis allegedly arrived under false pretenses and physically and sexually assaulted her. Photographs provided to Spiro purport to corroborate portions of her account. The woman subsequently contacted then-Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore—whom she knew independently—rather than law enforcement, saying she feared reprisal. Moore, a mandatory reporter under federal Title IX guidelines, declined to escalate the complaint and instead recommended Lewis for the defensive-line coaching post at Toledo, per Spiro’s reporting.

Moore has since been dismissed by Michigan and faces criminal stalking and breaking-and-entering charges unrelated to the Lewis matter.

Lewis spent one season at Toledo before moving to UConn and ultimately accepting the Falcons position in early February. Ann Arbor police have now opened an investigation, and detectives are expected to seek an interview with the former NFL assistant. Lewis’s brief stint at the highest level of professional football is over almost as quickly as it began.