Cook County Sherriff’s Officer Files Lawsuit Against WWE, Montez Ford

Details of the lawsuit against WWE and Montez Ford.

A Cook County Sheriff’s officer named Noel Lucas filed a lawsuit on October 14th in the Circuit Court of Cook County against WWE and Montez Ford, real name Kenneth Crawford. WWE’s subsidiary, Event Services, LLC, is also included in the suit.

Lucas was working as an off-duty security guard for a July 2026 edition of Monday Night Raw in Rosemont, Illinois. Crawford is from the city of Chicago.

Lucas is suing because Crawford performed a ‘lap dance’ on him during Netflix’s live broadcast of Raw, and WWE then pushed the clip out onto their social media pages.

MONTEZ FORD!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

— V. ✨♥️♥️🕷️🐝 (@HaangEmHiigh) July 7, 2026

Lucas alleges 14 counts, including assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of the Illinois Gender Violence Act. POST Wrestling reached out to WWE for a statement, but as of this writing, they have not responded. The site notes that the interaction between Crawford and Lucas is no longer on the July 6th Raw on Netflix feed.

Lucas states that Crawford danced toward him without consent. He added that because of the attention it got, he became publicly recognizable. He said the next day, people saw him and started mocking him by imitating what Crawford had done. Lucas added that his children have been ‘mocked and ridiculed’ at school because of what happened.

He said he’s suffered humiliation, embarrassment, and emotional distress. He brought up that WWE and Crawford used his image for commercial purposes, which he alleges violates the Illinois Right of Publicity Act.

Lucas’ attorney, Whitney Barr, issued the following statement to POST:

“Like so many law enforcement officers, Mr. Lucas works a second job in order to better provide for his children.”

Below is an excerpt from the lawsuit filing:

“Defendant Crawford then began performing a sexually provocative dance immediately in front of and over Plaintiff [Lucas], repeatedly thrusting and gyrating his hips and pelvis towards Plaintiff, performing a sexualized ‘lap dance.'” It continues, “[Crawford] moved his body increasingly closer to [Lucas]; continued the lap dance. [Crawford’s] left inner thigh repeatedly rubbed against Plaintiff’s leg.”

Lucas is asking the court to award him an unspecified amount of monetary damages, punitive damages, his legal costs, and to order that WWE and Crawford can’t use his identity.

A case hearing is set for December 10th.