Kraft Sports and Entertainment supervising producer David Mondillo released a statement Sunday after a video surfaced of the New England Patriots content team allegedly filming the Cincinnati Bengals sideline last week.
The Patriots are under NFL investigation after they admitted that the production crew, affiliated with Kraft Sports, captured footage of their upcoming opponent for Week 15, the Bengals, in last Sunday's game against the Cleveland Browns.
Mondillo's statement followed an initial release by New England, which claimed that the production crew in question for the company owned by Patriots owner Robert Kraft, filmed Bengals personnel with the only intention being "to provide an illustration of an advance scout at work on the road" -- ultimately violating NFL rules.
"On December 8 I was doing what I have done for more than 18 years -- working to produce high-quality content that tells the unique behind-the-scenes stories of people, players and the organization," Mondillo said in the statement. "It never occurred to me that my actions and the actions of my crew would be misconstrued.
"Our department was charged with completing four 'Do Your Job' segments before the end of the year. One of the segments was to follow a pro scout through his week to show the audience what his job entails.
"Before the shoot began I obtained permission and received credentials and a parking pass for Sunday's game.
"With permission in hand, we started taping on December 6 -- following the scout's travel through the weekend to Cleveland and obtained footage of him working in his hotel room and interviewed him about his job. The final element needed to complete the story was the shoot from the press box at Progressive Field to show the audience what his responsibilities are on game day.
"We went directly to the press box and set up a camera to get the footage we needed. We interviewed and shot the Patriots scout sitting in a chair watching the action and panned back-and-forth from him to what he was seeing on the sidelines. We took also took footage of the field as the intent was to show what he was looking at when he looked through his binoculars watching the game. At that point, I went to the restroom and when I came back my cameraman was told to stop shooting by someone from the NFL and he was joined by two others from the Bengals organization in an additional NFL security person. He stopped shooting immediately when asked to do so and cooperated fully.
"We had a detailed exchange about who we were and why we were there and what they wanted us to do. I gave the Sony SXS card to NFL security and we complied with the request, packed up and went home. I had no intention to provide footage to football operations. I did not provide any footage and I was never asked to do so."
