TULSA Okla.
A lawsuit against Oral Roberts University, filed by three former ORU professors, has been revised to include an internal report that details allegations against university President Richard Roberts and his wife, Lindsay.
The amended lawsuit in Tulsa County District Court adds university regents to the list of defendants and includes new allegations of negligence and civil conspiracy. The original suit alleged that the professors had been wrongly dismissed.
A university spokesman said on Friday after regular business hours that Richard Roberts and other ORU officials declined comment. The spokesman said they had not seen the amended lawsuit.
When the original lawsuit was filed on Oct. 2, the university said it was “largely premised upon a compilation of incomplete statements, unsubstantiated rumors and innuendoes.” Richard Roberts said the next day that “this lawsuit … is not about wrongful termination. It is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion.”
The Tulsa World first reported details of the revised lawsuit on its Web site on Friday.
Among the new allegations made in the lawsuit filed by former ORU professors Tim Brooker, Paulita Brooker and John Swails is that Richard Roberts and the university gave “a convicted sexual deviant unrestricted access to the students of the university,” although the suit does not identify the person.
According to the suit, the person had confessed to crimes in Tulsa, Tulsa County and Payne County before he was hired at ORU at the instruction of Richard Roberts.
Another new allegation is that the university’s financial comptroller, who had worked at the university for 26 years, was fired three days after the filing of the original lawsuit. The suit also claims that after the employee’s firing, “witnesses have reported that voluminous materials and documents were shredded and destroyed…”
What is purported to be an exact copy of an internal ORU ministry report documenting numerous acts of misconduct by the university and Richard Roberts is included in the new suit.
The report was developed by the ministry’s community and governmental liaison, Stephanie Cantees, the sister-in-law of Richard Roberts, according to the lawsuit, although the report misspells Cantees’ name.
The report outlines details involving allegations made about the involvement of Lindsay Roberts and an unnamed teenage boy.
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