Bobby Ross Jr.
Religion News Service
Oklahoma City – The wife of Oral Roberts University’s president denied charges that she spent the night with an underage male and engaged in other lurid behavior with a “male 16-year-old friend,” as alleged in a recent lawsuit.
Lindsay Roberts, whose husband, Richard Roberts, is president of the charismatic Christian university in Tulsa, said the allegations contained in the legal paperwork are false and “they sicken me to my soul.”
“The part that grieves me most is that these accusations are being brought forth in so many areas and being seen and heard through the media when the parties suing have continued to say they don’t even know if the allegations are true,” Lindsay Roberts said in a statement posted Saturday (Oct. 13) on the university’s Web site.
Lindsay Roberts is not a party in the lawsuit, filed by former Oral Roberts University professors John Swails, Tim Brooker and Paulita Brooker. The three claim they were either fired or forced to resign because of attempts by two of them to act as whistleblowers.
The lawsuit, filed Oct. 2 in Tulsa County District Court, alleges illegal political activity and lavish, unchecked spending by Richard Roberts and his family — accusations that the Robertses and the university deny.
The professors say they lost their jobs because they submitted a confidential university report — allegedly written at least in part by Richard Roberts’ sister-in-law, Stephanie Cantees — to Oral Roberts’ regents.
That report detailed the political and financial allegations as well as accusations about Lindsay Roberts and an underage male. The Tulsa World reported that accusations detailed in the report include charges that Lindsay Roberts:
— Spent the night at a university guesthouse with an underage male nine times.
— Was photographed 29 times in her car with an underage male after midnight.
— Visited Victory Christian School in Tulsa with an underage male
81 times in 2004.
— Smoked with an underage male and repeatedly moved her “16-year-old male friend” into her family’s house.
“I live my life in a morally upright manner and throughout my marriage have never, ever engaged in any sexual behavior with any man outside of my marriage as the accusations imply,” Lindsay Roberts said in her statement.
“These allegations cast a dark cloud on me, my family, the ministry and the university family,” she added. “I firmly believe that my vindication will certainly come in the court of law in the future. … I am unwilling to idly sit by and be accused of actions that are not true.”
Copyright 2007 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.