Ex-Baylor football coach Art Briles sues university officials, alleges libel
Sarah Mervosh, Breaking News Enterprise reporter
Former Baylor football coach Art Briles sued several university officials for libel Thursday, claiming that they falsely said that he knew of alleged sexual assaults by his football players but did not alert authorities.
The lawsuit comes after a series of news stories in which Briles says the school's regents and their public relations firm "embarked on a campaign of malice" against him to deflect attention away from their own wrongdoing.
Briles says he had no prior knowledge that 17 women reported sexual or domestic violence assaults involving 19 football players, including four alleged gang rapes, since 2011, before regents told The Wall Street Journal in October.
Regents told the newspaper that, in at least one case, Briles knew about an incident and did not report it. The suit contends that the regents' "false statements" implied Briles had knowledge of the entire scandal.
Briles' attorney Ernest Cannon told The Dallas Morning News he hopes the lawsuit will help his client "get his good reputation back."
"They have told things that were false and half true," he said. "So we went to a courthouse, where you hear all the truth and nothing but the truth."
Briles filed the lawsuit in Llano County, where he lives.
He sued three Baylor regents: Chairman Ron Murff, who works at a Dallas real estate company, board member David Harper, a Dallas lawyer, and board member J. Cary Gray, who is a lawyer in Houston.