LSU Lawyers Push Back After Details of 2013 Lawsuit Emerge

Attorneys for Louisiana State University called a recent court filing where new allegations made against former Tigers football coach Les Miles “confusing” and offered conclusions “that lack merit.”

The response filed by LSU in federal court on Monday was the latest argument in the civil rights lawsuit filed last year by Sharon Lewis, a former LSU associate athletic director. LSU is seeking a protective order to limit discovery in Lewis’ case. 

Earlier this month, attorneys for Lewis filed a 2013 letter from the lawyer representing a female LSU student who was 19 at the time. 

“She will no longer allow him to be unfaithful to his own family,” attorney Charles Peckman wrote in the letter on behalf of the then-student. “She refuses to allow LSU to sweep the acts of this sexual predator, stalker and groomer under the rug. She refuses to allow Coach Les Miles or LSU to continue to victimize her or others.”

The letter requested $2.15 million to settle the case. It’s unclear if the victim settled for that amount. 

The same year of that letter, LSU hired the law firm Taylor Porter to investigate Miles, details of which were not released to the public until last year. Miles was found to have texted female students, and had them over to his condo, and one student said Miles had kissed one. 

“She did not kiss back, but she was stunned and said nothing,” Peckman wrote in the 2013 letter. “He started in again and she recoiled, but he still forcibly kissed her. She then sought an excuse to leave the car. She thought of one and he drove her back to the bookstore.”

Miles was fired in 2016. He was put on leave and eventually parted ways in Kansas after allegations of his conduct came to light last year. 

“Making scandalous accusations does not make something true,” Peter Ginsberg, Miles’ lawyer, told The Advocate. “Sharon Lewis has already had her claims dismissed against Coach Miles in federal court. Her lawyers have already been sanctioned for filing false and erroneous pleadings in state court. Lewis and her lawyers have nothing left but to make more false claims in the hopes of extorting the parties in this litigation.”