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The romance writer Nicholas Sparks again publicly defended Thursday against allegations in a long-running lawsuit alleging that he had defamed the former director of his private Christian school in North Carolina telling people that this man was suffering from dementia.
Saul Hillel Benjamin was the first to file a complaint in 2014, just over a year after hiring him to head the Epiphany School of Global Studies in New Bern near the Carolina Coast. North. He alleged that Benjamin had been forced to quit his job because he was a Jewish Jew of Jewish Quakerism who had worked "to recruit black students and teachers" and "had supported a group of homosexual students. intimidated ".
Most of the lawsuits were rejected in 2016 and were subsequently filed in amended form. Among the items included in the litigation were apparently emails from Sparks' account in 2013, claiming that parents were complaining about a "gay agenda" regarding Benjamin's efforts to broaden school diversity, including welcoming students of different sexual orientations.
Benjamin claimed that the complaints were a pretext for his dismissal, which he claimed violated federal law. Sparks and the school deny the allegations.
Last year, a federal judge dismissed all charges in the amended case involving allegations of religious discrimination against Benjamin and retaliation for his attempts to diversify the school.
The other charges are more closely linked to allegations that the school forced Benjamin to resign voluntarily and that Sparks and others had defamed him by spreading rumors. according to which he was suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease, which, according to him, was not true.
The emails and their content have been the subject of reports dating back to 2015, but the attention was relaunched Thursday by the Daily Beast.
"The article in The Daily Beast of today is not news, and repeats false accusations and assertions made against Epiphany and myself, and largely ignores the overwhelming evidence that we have submitted to the Court, "said the author of many bestsellers who have sold more than 100 million copies, said Thursday in a statement.
"I am pleased that the Court has dismissed almost all the claims against me, my Foundation and Epiphany," he said. "Very important, the Court rejected all complaints of discrimination or harassment against me."
After efforts to settle the case have failed, the trial for the remaining charges is scheduled for Aug. 14 before the US District Court in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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