Liberty University is paying disgraced former president Jerry Falwell Jr. about $5.5 million in addition to the nearly $10 million he received in severance and retirement, according to recently filed tax records.
The payment settles “all outstanding disputes on both legal and personal matters,” according to the Lynchburg, Virginia, school.
The settlement was announced last year, but neither Falwell nor the university disclosed financial details of the arrangement. Both parties acknowledged “errors and mistakes” in an official statement when Falwell left in scandal. The school and the former president said they “each take responsibility for their part in the disputes” but would not comment further.
USA Today first reported on the new tax filings on Tuesday. Falwell told the newspaper he still wouldn’t comment but nonetheless said he was “very pleased with the outcome of the settlement negotiations and with the final settlement.”
The school was in danger of bankruptcy when Falwell took leadership in 2007 after the death of his father, Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell Sr. The younger Falwell saved the institution, not only putting it on firmer financial footing but also growing it into an evangelical behemoth. When left Liberty in 2020, the university had an endowment of nearly $2 billion and an annual in-person and online enrollment of about 125,000 students.
But his presidency also ended in flames after a series of scandals. When it was all over, Falwell told Vanity Fair he might have been subconsciously trying to destroy himself.
“It’s almost like I didn’t have a choice,” he said to the magazine. “My goal was to make them realize I was not my dad.”
The turmoil started in 2016 when Falwell’s eager, early support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign divided evangelicals, including Liberty staff and alumni. Then Politico and Buzzfeed reported Falwell had invested millions of dollars in a Miami youth hostel, and there were photos of Falwell and several family members partying in a nearby South Beach nightclub.
Falwell said the images were “likely photo-shopped,” but the photographer released more pictures showing the Falwells on a crowded dance floor.
Then Trump’s personal lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen—in the midst of a long and messy fallout with Trump—claimed that before the university president’s key endorsement, Cohen had done some fixing for him too. As a personal favor, Cohen had recovered photos of Falwell and his wife, Becki, that could be described as “racy” and “kinky.”
Then a 29-year-old partner in the hostel business came forward with claims he had had sex with Becki Falwell “multiple times per year” for seven years while Jerry Falwell sat and watched. Falwell admitted his wife had an affair but said it was short-lived and denied he was involved in any way.
At about the same time, Falwell posted pictures from a party on the yacht of a NASCAR mogul. One showed him posing with his arm around a pregnant Liberty employee, both with their pants unzipped. In the caption, Falwell didn’t explain why they were partially undressed but said the glass he was holding contained only “black water.”
Falwell apologized, took a leave of absence, and then resigned. As he stepped down, he quoted civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.: “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last.”
The disgraced president and the school sued and countersued in the subsequent years before settling all their disagreements with the $5.5 million payment. USA Today reports Falwell also paid Liberty $440,000 for “disputed expenses.”
The school is now led by Dondi E. Costin, a retired US Air Force major general and chaplain who earned two master’s degrees from Liberty.
