Liberty University sues Falwell.
RICHMOND, VA. >> Liberty University has filed a civil lawsuit against its former leader, Jerry Falwell Jr., seeking tens of millions in damages after the two parted ways acrimoniously last year.
The complaint, filed Thursday in Lynchburg Circuit Court, alleged Falwell crafted a “well-resourced exit strategy” from his role as president and chancellor in the form of a lucrative 2019 employment agreement while withholding damaging information from the evangelical school about a personal scandal that would explode into public view the following year.
“Despite his clear duties as an executive and officer at Liberty, Falwell Jr. chose personal protection,” the lawsuit said.
It also alleged that Falwell failed to disclose and address “the issue of his personal impairment by alcohol” and has refused to fully return confidential information and other personal property belonging to Liberty.
In a statement, Falwell said the lawsuit was full of “lies and half truths” and called it an attempt to defame him and discredit his record.
“I assure you that I will defend myself against it with conviction,” he said.
Falwell’s departure from the Virginia university in August 2020 came soon after Giancarlo Granda, a younger business partner of the Falwell family, said he had a yearslong sexual relationship with Falwell’s wife, Becki Falwell, and that Jerry Falwell participated in some of the liaisons as a voyeur.
Although the Falwells acknowledged that Granda and Becki Falwell had an affair, Jerry Falwell denied any participation. The couple alleged that Granda sought to extort them by threatening to reveal the relationship.
The lawsuit said Falwell had a “fiduciary duty to disclose Granda’s extortive actions, and to disclose the potential for serious harm to Liberty.”
Instead, Falwell “furthered the conspiracy of silence and negotiated a 2019 Employment Agreement that contained a higher salary from Liberty,” the suit said.
The lawsuit argued that Falwell and Granda’s actions have injured Liberty’s enrollment, hurt fundraising, disrupted faculty, resulted in the 2019 agreement that proved “detrimental to Liberty’s interests” and damaged the school’s reputation. Granda is not named as a defendant in the suit.
University spokesman Scott Lamb said Liberty’s “only word on the subject is the lawsuit itself.”
Falwell had already been on leave after posting a photo on social media that sparked an uproar. It showed Falwell on a yacht with a drink in his hand and his arm around a young woman who was not his wife, their pants unzipped and his underwear exposed.