Falwell Accuses New York Times of Trespassing, Claims Reporter Could Have Brought Coronavirus to Liberty University
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife Becki Falwell accused the New York Times of trespassing in an interview with Sinclair’s Eric Bolling on Wednesday, before claiming that the newspaper’s reporters came from Covid-19 hot spots and could have spread the virus to students on campus.
Liberty University filed a $10 million defamation and civil trespass lawsuit against the New York Times on Wednesday, after the newspaper published a story in March that reported on fears within the university of a coronavirus outbreak.
“They published in March a story that was completely made up, that there was a Covid outbreak caused by Liberty allowing students to come back after Spring Break,” declared Falwell, adding, “Only 1,200 out of 8,000 came back because they had nowhere else to go. A lot of other schools did the same thing.”
“We had zero cases among students, faculty, or staff the whole spring semester,” he claimed. “They reported we had 12 students with Covid symptoms and they got their information from a doctor 10 miles away from Liberty, and he made it clear to them that he was talking about that he had seen students with an upper respiratory infection which is not consistent with Covid. Covid is a lower respiratory infection and so they knew they were lying. He told them to talk to the on-campus doctor, they refused to do so, and so they just flat out lied.”
The New York Times article reported that, according to Dr. Thomas W. Eppes Jr., “nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggested Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.”
“Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. An additional eight were told to self-isolate,” the New York Times continued.
As of 8 p.m. on March 29, of those three students tested, one was positive, one was negative and one student’s results are still pending, according to Dr. Eppes, who added that the student who tested positive for Covid-19 lives off campus.
Falwell insisted the university “did everything by the book,” claiming again, “We had zero cases, we became a model for other schools to follow, but yet they reported– and hundreds of news outlets, or at least dozens picked up the story from the New York Times.”
Becki Falwell then noted that the New York Times reporter and photographer could have brought the coronavirus with them from coronavirus hot spots, commenting, “For them to trespass and come on campus from Covid hot spots, they came on campus and ignored all the warnings, and they could’ve brought it on our campus and given our students… exposed them to Covid.”
“But they didn’t care about it because they wanted to lie because we’re a conservative, Christian university,” she continued, before Jerry said, “We have ‘No Trespassing’ signs at every entrance, probably 25 or more, everywhere, so they knew they were trespassing and didn’t care.”
Becki added, “The photographer took a picture of the ‘No Trespassing’ sign and published it as part of the article.”
During the interview the Falwells also claimed that any money they might potentially win from the lawsuit would be donated to coronavirus-related charities.
Watch above via America This Week with Eric Bolling.
