Richard Roberts Talks About Lawsuit On "Larry King Live"

Oral Roberts University president Richard Roberts gave his first public interview Tuesday night, one week after being sued by three former professors. Roberts and his wife Lindsay appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live." During the interview, Roberts stressed that he has done nothing wrong, and the allegations he is facing are completely unfounded. The News On 6's Chris Wright reports Roberts' father Oral also weighed in.

"What do you make of it?" asked Larry King.

"Larry, I'm not sure exactly what to make of it. It's the most unusual thing I've ever witnessed in my life," ORU president Richard Roberts told Larry King Tuesday night. "It's a shot out of the blue and I'm very concerned over it."

"Like my son says, it was a surprise and somewhat of a shock, but we have been through some tough times building Oral Roberts University going back to the 1960s, and we have survived them all, and built a university that we believe is for the glory of God," ORU founder Oral Roberts told Larry King via the telephone.

Two of the three former ORU professors also spoke to CNN recently. Among other things, they have accused Roberts of ordering students and faculty to campaign for Tulsa Mayoral candidate Randi Miller. During that campaign, they say a student discovered incriminating files on a computer belonging to Roberts' sister-in-law. The professors say the files showed that Roberts and his family had misused university funds. They say they were fired after mentioning what they had found.

John Swails and Tim Brooker told CNN that the lawsuit is just the tip of the iceberg, and there is more information they don't even want made public.

"We're interested in truth, and we're interested in justice. The things that were in those files, if untrue, would be so damaging that they would never recover," former ORU professor Tim Brooker told CNN during an interview earlier this month. "I'm just not comfortable going any further, that's why we didn't put them in."

An ORU spokesperson told The News On 6 that Roberts opted to do the interview with Larry King because he believes it will help get his side of the story out to the nation.

Originally aired 10/9/2007 9:48 PM - Updated 10/10/2007 7:14 AM