Richard Roberts denies lawsuit reports

NEW YORK — Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts and his wife, Lindsay Roberts, denied on Tuesday that they had misused university money, allegations made against them in a lawsuit a week ago.

The couple gave their first interview since the lawsuit was filed as they rode Tuesday in ORU’s leased 1979 Hawker 700 plane en route to New York City for an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

A Tulsa World reporter and photographer and an AP reporter accompanied the Robertses to New York. The World made arrangements to pay for the cost of transporting its personnel.

On the show, King asked the couple to address the claims in the lawsuit point-by-point, beginning with the allegation that Richard Roberts, president of ORU, required professor Tim Brooker to make his students help with a Tulsa mayoral campaign in 2006.

“I didn’t ask or coerce anybody to do that. That’s not true,” Richard Roberts responded.

Brooker is among three former Oral Roberts University professors who on Oct. 2 filed suit against the school and four administrators, including Roberts, alleging wrongful termination and wrongful causing of one professor’s resignation.

The professors said they lost their jobs because they turned over to administrators a report that alleged that the Richard Roberts family extensively spent university money for personal uses.

Richard Roberts confirmed on CNN that one of the professors was terminated, another’s contract was not renewed and the third resigned.

A week after two of the plaintiffs and their attorney held a press conference to announce the filing of the lawsuit, the Robertses said in an interview with the Tulsa World and The Associated Press that they still had not been served with the lawsuit and were instead being tried “in the court of public opinion and media.”

Although the lawsuit filed by three former ORU professors claims that they were wrongfully fired or caused to resign, Richard Roberts said, “I think it is about a personal character attack about Lindsay and me.”

But Lindsay Roberts said they have turned to the Bible’s command to love others.

“If we don’t do that, we aren’t who we say we are,” she said.

The mayoral campaign: The lawsuit alleges that Richard Roberts required former professor and plaintiff Tim Brooker to make his students work on Republican Randi Miller’s mayoral campaign last year. Richard Roberts told the World and the AP he did not do that, nor did he require Brooker to take the blame with the Internal Revenue Service and say Brooker had required students to work on Miller’s campaign.

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The IRS checked into the situation and, after ORU answered its questions, told ORU, “You’re fine,” Richard Roberts said.

The report: The lawsuit contains a summary of a report allegedly written by Lindsay Roberts’ sister, Stephanie Cantese, whose job is to report weekly to Richard Roberts anything she has heard in the community, from the City Council, from the mayor and elsewhere, he said.

“She writes what she hears down, whether it’s good or bad, whether it’s true or false,” Richard Roberts said.

Three years ago, when he received Cantese’s report that contained some of the claims included in the lawsuit, he laughed.

“It was so ridiculous, I just dismissed it out of hand,” he said.

While working on the Miller campaign, a student was asked to repair an ORU computer, Tim Brooker said. The student backed up the computer’s files and discovered the report on the alleged misuse of ORU money, Brooker said.

Richard Roberts said the report referenced in the lawsuit was not written in Cantese’s style and contained allegations that Roberts had never heard, such as his wife’s remodeling the house to build a 2,000-square-foot closet.

The allegations that the lawsuit mentions actually were Cantese’s messages to herself as she was compiling her report, Richard Roberts said.

Their house: Lindsay Roberts told the World and the AP that said she does not have a 2,000-square-foot closet, as alleged in the lawsuit. She measured it and counted 528 square feet, but she and her husband were quick to point out that it serves as storage for study guides, TV transcripts and more.

She also said the family does not have its own soda vending machine in its garage, as the lawsuit’s summarization of the report claims. The family does have a mini-fridge.

Vehicles: The report in the lawsuit also alleges that the Robertses use vehicles donated for ORU or Oral Roberts Ministries use. Lindsay Roberts said a friend in Dallas gave her a Lexus sport utility vehicle in 2000 and that Richard Roberts bought her a red Mercedes for her birthday.

“He said, ‘Mind you, this is your birthday present until you’re 67 years old,’ ” she said her husband told her.

Clothes: The report in the lawsuit alleges that university and ministries employees are routinely told to charge clothing expenses to the organizations rather than to the Roberts family. The Robertses said a TV wardrobe is kept by the ministries for Lindsay Roberts and that those clothes remain with the ministries for use on her TV shows, never going home with her.

She said employees are adding up her clothing receipts but have not found her expenses to amount to as much as the lawsuit claims.

Homework and tutors: Richard Roberts said the report’s claim that ORU and Oral Roberts Ministries employees regularly do their daughters’ homework is “a bunch of balogna.”

However, the family has personally paid for tutors because two of the three Roberts daughters have dyslexia, like their mother, the couple said.

Cell phones: The report in the lawsuit claims that Lindsay Roberts sent text messages to underage males, often between 1 and 3 a.m. In response, Lindsay Roberts said one of her daughters uses her cell phone when the daughter’s is broken. Also, the Robertses routinely send one of their cell phones home with their daughters’ visitors to make sure the visitors get home safely. Then they retrieve the phone in the morning, Richard Roberts said.

The Robertses reiterated that they pay for their personal expenses and said the audit and compliance committee of the ORU Board of Regents determines what expenses are business-related and what are personal. Personal expenses are deducted monthly from Richard Roberts’ paycheck, Lindsay Roberts said. She is not an ORU employee and, thus, is not paid by the school.

Oral Roberts himself shared his reaction to the lawsuit during a telephone interview with King from his home in California, saying the allegations in the lawsuit were only “sort of a shock” to him because “we have been through some tough experiences” before.

World staff writer Andrea Eger contributed to this story. /em>

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