Ex men’s coach Ollie threatens defamation suit against UConn

Ollie wants retraction, threatens to sue

The Kevin Ollie/UConn saga keeps getting uglier and uglier.

Ollie wants a retraction from UConn for information released publicly last week, and he’s threatening to sue the school for defamation of character and invasion of privacy.

In a letter to UConn president Susan Herbst, Ollie’s lawyers — the firm of Madsen, Prestley & Parenteau — demand a retraction from the school for releasing NCAA transcripts to various media outlets, including Hearst Connecticut Media. The transcripts were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act re- quest.

The biggest bombshell revealed in the more than, 1,300 pages of documents comes from former associate head coach Glen Miller, who claimed that Ollie paid the mother of a recruit $30,000 for living accommodations closer to the school.

Ollie’s lawyers have questioned the veracity of those claims, as Jacques Parenteau, one of Ollie’s lawyers, made clear in an email to Hearst Connecticut Media late last week.

“To be clear, the University of Connecticut did not rely upon these false claims as cause to terminate Coach Ollie because

there is no truth to what Glenn (sic) Miller claims,” Parenteau wrote. “The allegation that Coach Ollie paid money to the mother of a player as moving expenses … (is a complete fabrication). As shown by the May 10, 2018 letter from the AAUP, Glen Miller is an unreliable witness whose inconsistent testimony and biased motive demonstrate that he is not credible on anything he claimed as fact.”

Ollie’s lawyers say the transcripts shouldn’t have been released to the public because of FOIA laws.

In a statement released on Wednesday, UConn refuted Ollie’s claims.

“UConn released the documents in direct response to a Freedom of Information request by Mr. Ollie’s own attorneys,” said school spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz. “Other parties, including the media, also requested and received these same documents as required by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in Connecticut. The FOIA, which governs public agencies as the University, does not permit the selective release of public records to certain parties while denying those same records to others.”

In response to UConn’s statement, Ollie’s lawyers said that Ollie would not have signed off on the release of the documents.

“There was no need to release the confidential transcripts to Coach Ollie in a FOI response since the AAUP already had been provided with them months earlier,” Parenteau wrote. “When the news organizations made the FOI request, the FOI statute required UConn to notify Coach Ollie that his right to privacy was implicated. The FOI statue states if Coach Ollie objects then UConn cannot release the information. All of the FOI releases occurred simultaneously, long after the requests were made. Had we been informed of the intention to release these false and defamatory claims, Coach Ollie would have objected to this invasion of his privacy. There is no excuse for UConn’s failure to notify Coach Ollie of their intention to violated his privacy interest.”

Ollie was relieved of his coaching duties on March 10, and his dismissal was upheld after hearings before athletic director David Benedict and, later, Herbst. Last week, Herbst wrote in a letter to Ollie that his dismissal was justified for a variety of reasons, notably that Ollie was responsible for multiple violations, never reported them to UConn compliance, and that his contract held him to a higher standard of behavior because of past indiscretions during Jim Calhoun’s tenure.

Ollie believes he is owned the more than $10 million left on his contract. The sides are headed to arbitration, a process that could take months.

Jessica Hill / Associated Press Former UConn coach Kevin Ollie has demaded a retraction from the school after the disclosure of sensitive information through an FOI release and is threatening to sue the school for defamation of character and invasion of privacy.