The President of Oral Roberts University, Richard Roberts, is accused making of illegal donations to Tulsa County Commissioner Randi Miller, a Republican candidate, in her race for Tulsa mayor and lavish spending for Roberts’ wife Lindsay Roberts. In addition, university staff worried that “Roberts risked the non-profit status of the university by insisting” students work as volunteers for Miller’s mayoral campaign. The lawsuit claims that the university worked with the Republican National Committee “in an effort to further Republican efforts.”
The allegations against Roberts include using the university jet and billing expenses to the school for his daughter’s trip to the Bahamas, maintaining a stable of horses at the university for exclusive use by the Robertses’ children, having university and ministry employees summoned to the Roberts home to do the daughters’ homework, remodeling his home 11 times in the past 14 years, and a purchasing red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for Lindsay. Lindsay is also accused of spending tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends’ children, and sending text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.”
The lawsuit was filed last Tuesday by three former professors who claim “they were wrongfully dismissed after reporting the school’s involvement in a local political race.” According to KTEN news, “Roberts’ statement says personal expenses are charged to him and he personally pays them on a monthly basis.” On October 3, Roberts “told students and faculty during his weekly chapel Wednesday that the lawsuit is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion.”
John Hagee a ORU Board of Regents member, said the university’s executive board “is conducting a full and thorough investigation.” The lawsuit alleges “members of the Board of Regents are painfully aware- have omitted from this Petition to preserve, as much as possible, the remaining image of the University.” Furthermore, the court filing quoted Roberts as saying “if a Regent appears to give me trouble, I remove him. I stack the deck. . .”
Richard Roberts, is the son of university founder and former faith healer Oral Roberts. Richard took over official duties for his father in 1993.
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