Wednesday, a report surfaced that whatever effort there was by a handful of Baylor boosters to bring Art Briles back as head football coach was all but dead. In that same report, it was reported that settlement talks with Briles were underway.
While that could’ve been the beginning of the end of that chapter of the story, it’s seemingly not.
Briles was named in an April lawsuit filed by a woman against both him and the university in which she claims she was raped by a Bears football player while Briles was the coach. The woman claimed that Briles, among others, was made aware of the alleged sexual assault but did nothing. It also alleged that Briles was aware of other assault claims made against the same player but, again, did not take any action.
In a response to that suit, Briles’ attorneys have filed a motion, the Associated Press has reported, in which Briles claims he was wrongfully terminated from his job by the university and that he has no plans to settle the federal lawsuit. Just last week, lawyers for the university had indicated to the judge that Briles was willing to settle.
“Briles’ petition says he met April 7 with Baylor attorneys and that they used information he shared to support his firing,” the AP added.
In a separate letter to BU, Briles’ attorneys described their client’s firing by the university as “camouflage to disguise its own institutional failure to comply with Title IX and other federal civil rights laws.”
The entire motion can be accessed HERE.
Briles was fired late last month in the wake of the sexual assault scandal that’s rocked the Baptist university in Waco.
In 2014, Briles earned nearly $6 million in total compensation. At the time of his firing, Briles still had eight years and what’s described as nearly $40 million in guaranteed money remaining on his contract.
In the report from HornsDigest.com, sources told Chip Brown that a settlement between Briles and the university would probably end up in the neighborhood of $20 million.
Based on the filing in the federal lawsuit, it appears Briles is going to at least attempt to get closer to the $40 million mark than that $20 million. At the very least, the motion, which also requests that BU turn over all of its files connected to the scandal, could provide Briles and his legal team fodder for these settlement talks, which could become more contentious before they’re resolved.