Lindsay Roberts and the Oral Roberts University lawsuit

[Enlighten]

Lindsay Roberts is married to Richard Roberts (its his second wife), the son of Oral Roberts. Richard is current Oral Roberts University president. The fall out of the scandal at Oral Roberts University has caused:

The Oral Roberts University Board of Regents is committed to operating the institution in accordance with all ethical, legal and moral standards. Towards that end, the Executive Committee of the Board of Regents met on Friday to discuss pending litigation and allegations made in regards to Oral Roberts University and certain members of the administration. By the unanimous vote of the Executive Committee, the Chairman of the Board of Regents was directed to engage an independent. . .

http://webapps.oru.edu/alumniweb/news/allstories.php?site=oru&id=607

Who is on the board?

Lindsay is Executive Vice President of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association** and a member of the Oral Roberts University Board of Regents.** She often ministers at women’s conferences and other services around the country.

http://www.oru.edu/aboutoru/president.php

and

Mrs. Roberts — who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as ORU's "first lady" on the university's Web site — frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones at university expense."

http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_212107726.shtml


Among the claims about Richard and Lindsay:

According to the Draft report, Richard Roberts stated in a taped phone call, “I have the deck stacked—I am elected to three year terms and if a Regent appears to give me trouble, I remove him. I stack the deck . . .” (Draft report cites a numbered tape as documentation.) **
...
Receipts for clothing are routinely handed to ORU/OREA staffers with orders to “cover the charges.” (Original draft notes an attached document reflecting $51,206.00 in clothing receipts.) Staffers are under standing orders to modify records/cover purchases to make personal purchases appear to be business related.**
...
Cell phone bills for Mrs. Roberts and her daughters consistently run over $800/month—with an average of over 1,000 text messages per month. (Original draft notes names of numbers of recipients of calls and texts.)

Records indicate that Mrs. Roberts replaced 21 cell phones in a two year period. Fifteen bills during that period exceeded $800/month. Four months had text messages in excess of 800— many of those texts from Mrs. Roberts were sent to underage males—often between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. who had been provided phones at university expense.
...
Mrs. Roberts spent over $39,000 at one clothing store alone—in Chico’s (http://www.chicos.com/store/home.asp)—in less than one year. Employees in the ministry assert that other accounts exist for stores in Texas and California which greatly add to the total.
...

More at:
http://www.fox23.com/media/news/0/7/3/0733fad0-1d61-4e94-b1d8-ded53dfb1053/Oral_Roberts_Lawsuit.pdf

So Lindsay has oversight over herself and her husband?

**OREA is Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association.

[wollery]

But, they're good christians, so surely they can be trusted to be honest when investigating allegations of their own dishonesty.






Oh.

[Enlighten]

It seems Richard's investigating himself too:


President Richard Roberts

Richard often talks about ORU’s humble beginnings.
...
This includes serving on the ORU Board of Regents, as CEO and chairman of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association Board of Trustees, and as co-chairman of the International Charismatic Bible Ministries conference. Going farther afield, Richard has conducted healing crusades on six continents.


http://www.oru.edu/aboutoru/president.php

[steve s]

[A bit OT]

http://www.oru.edu/aboutoru/campus_tour.php

The link above is a map of Oral Roberts Univerity. Of the 16 buildings listed, I can only find one (#11) that's a classroom building. They've got plenty of residence halls, a TV studio, a chapel, a library, administration and personnel buildings, a theater, a sports arena, a ballfield, and even a Chick-fil-A. I think my high school had more classroom space than they do, and we had a fraction of their student body. What kind of education can the kids there be getting? (That's a rhetorical question. I know exactly what kind of education they're getting.)
[/A bit OT]

Steve S.

[Darth Rotor]

Lindsay Roberts is married to Richard Roberts (its his second wife), the son of Oral Roberts. Richard is current Oral Roberts University president. The fall out of the scandal at Oral Roberts University has caused:
**OREA is Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association.
I am confused. I thought Oral Roberts was Lindsay Robert's nom du slag , back when she was a lap dancer, and all around strumpet, in her "tramping about New Orleans" days.

Can't tell the players without a score card, I tells ya.

DR

[Enlighten]

Richard, Oral, and Larry King:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0710/09/lkl.01.html

[Enlighten]

More information released:


New claims in ORU lawsuit
Tulsa World Staff Writer
10/13/2007

...
The full, unsubstantiated report now attached to the lawsuit contains new allegations that Lindsay Roberts, Richard Roberts' wife, spent the night in an ORU guest house with an underage male nine times, was photographed 29 times in her car with an underage male after midnight and after minors' curfew, visited Victory Christian School with an underage male 81 times in 2004, smoked with an underage male at her house and repeatedly moved her "male 16-year-old friend" into her family's house.

New claims

The amended lawsuit also contains a new defendant -- ORU's board of regents -- and two new legal claims.
...
The lawsuit also claims that ORU and Richard Roberts gave "a convicted sexual deviant unrestricted access to the students of the university." The unidentified man was a "mentor" to ORU students and had confessed to "exposing himself to a 15-year-old boy in a school locker room."
...
As another example of alleged negligence, the plaintiffs claim that ORU and Richard Roberts fired the school's financial comptroller three days after they filed their lawsuit, then ORU destroyed "voluminous materials and documents . . . constituting spoilation of evidence," the lawsuit says.
...
The lawsuit alleges that at least one conspiracy meeting happened on ORU's plane, which is leased from Tulsa Jet Management, whose president is Tulsa City Councilor Bill Christiansen.



http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071013_1_A1_hItal21002

[Enlighten]

More Information On University Lawsuit

KOTV - 10/13/2007 4:24 PM - Updated 10/13/2007 11:48 PM

Former professors add to their lawsuit against Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. The lawsuit names new defendants, makes new allegations, and releases more information. The News On 6’s Joshua Brakhage reports the professors have added the Oral Roberts University Board of Regents to the case.

The suit now claims the regents didn't properly oversee the university and its president Richard Roberts.

The former professors also say Oral Roberts University allowed a man who previously confessed to "exposing himself to a 15-year-old boy in a school locker room" to mentor college kids.

The plaintiffs say it's just another example of the school's poor leadership.
...


http://www.kotv.com/news/topstory/?id=137866

Read the filing: http://kotv.com/sva.pdf

[Btodd]

As someone who grew up not far from this 'ministry', I cannot wait until this all comes out. As I watched the Larry King broadcast, with Richard and Lindsay so sincerely denying all allegations, a small tear formed in the corner of my eye, as I remember the words of Ted Haggard, who was also in sincere denial.

Maybe there's a three week course Ted can direct the Roberts to after this is all over?

[Pyrts]

Hmm! I'm not sure how I missed the beginning of the melodrama, but it sure is interesting! I think about the only evangelist I do respect is Billy Graham. I'm not surprised at the money-sucking habits of the clan... and the bad business sense. Ol' Oral himself managed to bankrupt his own hospital within a decade of his deity's insisting he build it and promising that it would be a center of light and healing to all.

[articulett]

As someone who grew up not far from this 'ministry', I cannot wait until this all comes out. As I watched the Larry King broadcast, with Richard and Lindsay so sincerely denying all allegations, a small tear formed in the corner of my eye, as I remember the words of Ted Haggard, who was also in sincere denial.

Maybe there's a three week course Ted can direct the Roberts to after this is all over?

I think it takes 3 weeks to heal "gay"... it probably takes longer to heal hypocrisy, fleecing the flock, and having a bevy of young boys attend to the wife (and possibly the husband given the gay proclivities of the "family values" crowd.) Do you think we'll get Jimmy Swaggart type tears?
Will he pop up like Peter Popoff selling holy water in a few years... those are the kinds of prophecies I'd find valuable.

[Enlighten]

ORU faculty vote 'no confidence' in president Richard Roberts


By APRIL MARCISZEWSKI
Tulsa World
Last Modified: 11/13/2007

A quorum of tenured Oral Roberts University faculty voted “no confidence” in President Richard Roberts and voted in favor of “greater faculty governance and transparency of university finances” in a 3 1/2-hour meeting Monday night.
...


http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071113_1__Aquor06243

[Enlighten]

Richard Roberts' offers 35 point-by-point "rebuttal." It basically says "that's not true" to each individual claim. Importantly it lacks any evidence to support Roberts' version of events. You'd think this "rebuttal" would offer facts, but then again this family/university was built on faith healing/raising the dead.

Richard Roberts issues rebuttal to 35 allegations

TOM GILBERT / Tulsa World
By ZIVA BRANSTETTER World Projects Editor
11/18/2007

Roberts and his attorney, Frank Hagedorn, released the document to the Tulsa World. It contains responses to allegations contained in two versions of a document allegedly prepared by Stephanie Cantees, the sister of Roberts' wife, Lindsay. The versions were attached to a lawsuit filed by three former professors against Roberts, ORU and other defendants.
...
Allegation: Lindsay Roberts sent text messages to underage males between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.

Response: "Richard and Lindsay get calls and texts at all hours due to a ministry they had for kids with drug and alcohol problems. . . . The time of text messaging and calls could easily occur between 1-3 a.m., as they are overseas on a regular basis." The Roberts' daughters also occasionally use their parents' phone and bills are paid personally.

Allegation: Richard Roberts claimed: "I have the deck stacked. I am elected to 3 year terms and if a regent appears to give me trouble I remove him."

Response: The Regents Nominating Committee submits nominations and the board votes on board members. All board members serve three-year terms and Richard Roberts does not have authority to name or fire board members.
...


http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071118_1_A1_spanc54155

It should be noted that Tulsa World is hardly considered an impartial news source at the university/Robertses. The paper has not been overly critical in the last 30+ years about these types of scandals.

[godless dave]

Hmm! I'm not sure how I missed the beginning of the melodrama, but it sure is interesting! I think about the only evangelist I do respect is Billy Graham.

I don't respect Billy Graham, but a disrespect him a lot less than shysters like the Robertses.

[Questioninggeller]

Most recent news:


Oral Roberts: Son did nothing wrong in ORU scandal
Feb 16, 2009
Associated Press (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gJnmjc1PEPoE0QjD_nj32fr4R1YwD96C7ALO0)

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Oral Roberts says he doesn't think his son, who has been accused of misspending funds at the university the evangelist founded, did anything wrong.

In a visit to the Oral Roberts University campus on Saturday, the 91-year-old Roberts said he and Richard Roberts didn't discuss his son's decision to resign as the school's president in late 2007.

The younger Roberts, a televangelist, was accused along with his wife, Lindsay, of spending money on shopping sprees, home improvements and a stable of horses for their daughters at a time when ORU was badly in debt. Both have denied wrongdoing.
...
Roberts called the creation of the university the crowning achievement of his life, and said he never thought the university would close despite its financial woes. He said that "if God hadn't sent the Green family, He would have sent somebody else."

Dr. Mark Rutland, a former president of Southeastern University in Florida, was named the new president of the Oklahoma school in January.
...
Roberts declined to talk about his son's future.



Source (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gJnmjc1PEPoE0QjD_nj32fr4R1YwD96C7ALO0)

If Roberts' son, daughter-in-law, and university did nothing wrong then why did they settle out of court with undisclosed terms (http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090128_11_A7_Icywea242042&archive=yes)?

[articulett]

God only knows... ?

(I think the longer you lie to yourself the easier it gets.)

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Most recent news:

Source (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gJnmjc1PEPoE0QjD_nj32fr4R1YwD96C7ALO0)

If Roberts' son, daughter-in-law, and university did nothing wrong then why did they settle out of court with undisclosed terms (http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090128_11_A7_Icywea242042&archive=yes)?

The Devil made them do it? ;)