Updated: Liberty College data files $10M fit towards Falwell
6 min read
In assertion, Falwell states he will defend himself “with conviction”
Published
Kate Andrews
Liberty University has sued Jerry Falwell Jr. for $10 million, accusing the former president and chancellor of the Lynchburg-based Christian university of breach of contract and fiduciary obligation. The go well with alleges that Falwell negotiated a salary maximize and larger severance offer in his 2019 agreement whilst not disclosing to the university’s government committee his entanglement with a young Miami male who was threatening to make public his sexual involvement with Falwell’s wife.
The lawsuit statements that Falwell, who resigned as president and chancellor last August after greatly publicized allegations of sexual misconduct involving his spouse and a previous pool attendant at a Miami hotel, schemed to “cover up the illicit conduct” in an endeavor to silence Giancarlo Granda, whom Falwell and Liberty’s fit declare ended up hoping to blackmail the couple with salacious pics and private text messages confirming his affair with Becki Falwell as properly as Jerry Falwell’s knowledge of the affair.
Falwell issued a written statement Friday afternoon in response to the lawsuit:
“The Executive Committee of the Liberty College Board of Trustees has created still an additional attempt to defame me and discredit my report, next a series of severe and needless steps versus my small children, Becki, and me. Throughout all my several years at the university, where we constructed a multi-billion-dollar business that reaches Christians around the globe, I generally abided by the needs that utilized to all people on the university workers. This lawsuit is complete of lies and 50 {14cc2b5881a050199a960a1a3483042b446231310e72f0dc471a7a1eddd6b0c3} truths, and I guarantee you that I will defend myself towards it with conviction.”
Granda has denied attempting to blackmail or extort the Falwells. In a assertion Friday on Twitter, he mentioned, “Liberty University’s lawsuit carries on to perpetuate a false narrative. The reality detailing the Falwells’ — and their enablers’ — abuse of power, predatory actions and corruption will arrive in thanks time.”
“The Falwells understood they shared a unity of passions with Granda,” the lawsuit alleges. “They experienced an significant target in popular: silence about the Falwells’ salacious acts. The Falwell[s] wanted silence from Granda in purchase to safeguard their individual status, Jerry Jr.’s skilled standing, and his work with America’s primary evangelical college.”
Liberty’s complaint consists of a photograph of Granda meeting Donald Trump throughout the long term president’s 2012 check out to Liberty College, as properly as photographs of Granda with the Falwells on a tour of the U.S. Capitol, in the Florida Keys and at their farm in Virginia. These, the lawsuit claims, “were among the functions of appeasement that the Falwells made use of around the decades to maintain Granda’s cooperative silence.”
However, as Granda started granting media interviews and suggesting to Falwell that he prepared to make the entire tale public, the accommodate alleges that Falwell “began to vogue a effectively-resourced exit strategy” in 2019, a “deceitful scheme to manipulate” Liberty’s government committee during his work contract negotiations. Though “Falwell Jr. realized he was underneath active danger of extortion from Granda,” the fit says, he did not advise the committee for the duration of negotiations.
In the course of negotiations, Falwell was granted a “significant once-a-year raise” to $1.25 million a calendar year, which would stay his fork out by 2030 in the deal, and he organized for a severance of $2.5 million if he resigned for “good reason” or was terminated devoid of induce. Also, the go well with claims, Falwell obtained a “catch-up ‘rabbi trust’ system for retirement advantages that would include his full vocation of company at Liberty but experienced not been component of any earlier employment settlement.”
The complaint also statements that Falwell, “emboldened by the financial protection that he experienced negotiated for himself … struck out at Granda,” stating through textual content that “the extortion attempts would have to close.” Additional, the lawsuit alleges that “to take care of his pressure, Falwell Jr. began consuming drastically,” prompting considerations “that he smelled of alcoholic beverages all through get the job done interactions,” the fit says. In August, when Falwell took an indefinite leave of absence right after putting up a controversial image of himself and a Liberty worker with their pants unzipped and stomachs exposed on his Instagram account, the government committee of the university’s board of trustees insisted on residential alcohol procedure.
Instead of agreeing to look for treatment method, the lawsuit alleges, Falwell was found in an Aug. 20, 2020, video clip at his trainer’s health and fitness center, displaying him “performing pelvic thrust workout routines on a weight bench with two youthful gals, possible Liberty college students, inexplicably using both conclusion of the barbell as Falwell Jr. exerted himself.” The online video was posted on social media.
Days later, Falwell wrote and submitted a statement to the Washington Examiner newspaper about the Granda affair, alleging that he and his wife were being victims of attempted extortion, the lawsuit states. Reuters printed an interview with Granda about the affair the next working day. The adhering to day, Aug. 25, Falwell resigned.
The lawsuit was submitted Thursday by McGuireWoods attorney Scott Oostdyk on the university’s behalf in Lynchburg Circuit Court docket.
Scott Lamb, a spokesman for Liberty College, claimed Friday the university has no other comment further than what is said in the lawsuit.
Final Oct, Falwell submitted a defamation accommodate towards Liberty, boasting that officers at the university manufactured libelous statements about him subsequent his pressured resignation last August next a series of controversies, which includes the revelation in a Reuters information story that his spouse was having an affair with Granda, who afterwards was their organization husband or wife, and that Falwell himself was knowledgeable of the affair and participated by observing the two have intercourse. Falwell has vehemently denied his possess participation in the affair.
In December 2020, nonetheless, Falwell dropped his lawsuit in search of punitive damages and attorney’s costs from the university the place he was president from 2007 to 2020. In a assertion, Falwell stated he made a decision to “take a timeout” from the litigation while continuing “to maintain all alternatives on the table for an proper resolution to the subject.”
Falwell did not respond to a dilemma on regardless of whether he plans to revive his lawsuit or countersue.
Liberty filed the criticism a single working day in advance of its semiannual board of trustees meeting Friday and Saturday, many months right after asserting a third-bash investigation into the university’s funds throughout Falwell’s tenure. Though Lamb did not announce a timeline for the report, or regardless of whether it would be built public, the Chicago-primarily based public accounting firm Baker Tilly US closed its nameless whistleblower web page in late December.
Also, Politico claimed Thursday that Jerry “Trey” Falwell III, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s eldest son, is no more time employed as a vice president at Liberty. Although no allegations of impropriety have been made publicly about the younger Falwell, in 2013, a shell firm, Alton Hostel LLC, acquired a Miami Beach front youth hostel for $4.65 million, with Falwell III stated as its sole manager. In accordance to a 2017 Politico short article, Granda managed the hostel, and Falwell III was specified the funds to acquire the assets by his father, Falwell Jr.
Liberty’s match also alleges that Trey Falwell was employed Jan. 1, 2016, as an administrative assistant to the president for a 15-yr time period ending July 1, 2030, with a $23,000 elevation in income, from $65,000 to $88,000 a 12 months, as well as a motor vehicle allowance that boosted his yearly payment to $95,200 in his 1st yr. In 2017, Falwell III was promoted to the position of vice president of university providers, and his wage was elevated to $195,000 by July 1, 2017, the suit claims.
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