reported from forbes.com -
TOPLINE
A former pool attendant turned business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr. claims he engaged in a years-long sexual relationship with the recently departed Liberty University president and his wife, stoking renewed controversy surrounding the leading Christian conservative figurehead and President Trump ally.
KEY FACTS
In a Reuters report published Monday, Giancarlo Granda, who says he met the Falwells at age 20 while working as a pool attendant in a Miami Beach hotel, detailed a years-long relationship with the couple that involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell Jr. watched.
“Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda, now 29-years-old, told Reuters, describing sexual encounters in hotels in Miami and New York, and at the couple’s Virginia home, “multiple times per year.”
Granda provided emails, text messages and other evidence to support his claims.
After Reuters reached out to the Falwells about the claims, Jerry Falwell Jr. sent a 1,200-word statement to the Washington Examiner in which he said his wife had an engaged in an “inappropriate personal relationship” with Granda which he had used to try and extort money, but made no mention of his own involvement.
Details of Granda’s connection to the Falwell’s made news in 2018 when Buzzfeed reported the details of a business they all launched together, which ended in a falling out and lawsuit in which Granda claimed he’d been wrongly cut out.
On Friday, Liberty University’s board of trustees said it had not yet made a decision “whether or not to retain Falwell as president” after he was put on “indefinite leave” on August 7.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
Granda, who said he began the sexual relationship with the Falwells willingly the month he met them in 2018, now says his “immaturity, naiveté, instability or a combination thereof” made him the “ideal target” for the Falwells, and he feels he was preyed upon.
KEY BACKGROUND
Falwell came under the spotlight earlier this month after posting a picture of himself on a yacht while on vacation with his pants unzipped, his midriff hanging out, a drink in-hand and his arm around a woman.
