Disgraced school administrator and lapsed Evangelical Jerry Falwell, Jr. has reinitiated a defamation lawsuit against his former employer, Liberty University, claiming the school he once ran had repeatedly slandered him after firing him, Virginia Business reports.
Falwell initially filed the $10 million lawsuit in October 2020 as a counterclaim to a $30 million lawsuit filed by Liberty University in which the institution sued Falwell, the one-time president of the university founded by his father, for breach of contract and fiduciary duty. Falwell is accused of directing university funds to finance his lavish lifestyle and directing university resources to projects that would personally enrich him.
Falwell refiled the paperwork for the case last month. He also seeks items he claims is personal property that the university is illegally withholding from him. These items include a .38 revolver; the URL JerryFalwell.com (which is currently inactive); personal items from Falwell’s former offices and Liberty warehouses; three horses provided to the equestrian center; legal files from 1988 to 2007; and a collection of books and historical items.
Falwell also claims that the university is holding personal items in the former residence of his parents, Jerry and Macel Falwell, which the Falwell children donated to the school following the deaths of their parents.
At his direction, Falwell withdrew the cases in December 2020, claiming he needed to take a break from the issues surrounding his dismissal. The initial suit claimed that then-Liberty senior vice president David Nasser made public statements calling Falwell’s behavior “shameful” and “sinful.”
Under Falwell’s leadership, the school invested in real estate projects in the Lynchburg area, using real estate development companies in which Falwell had an ownership stake or a financial interest. In other cases, Falwell directed the university to contract with friends of his for construction or maintenance services.
In July, Liberty University was hit with a number of lawsuits from former students and employees claiming that the institution buried complaints by females of sexual harassment and abuse over a period of years, mainly when Falwell, Jr. was running the school.