Tuohys ’emphatically’ deny Oher’s claims in filing

• Michael A. Fletcher, ESPNSep 14, 2023, 07:51 PM ET

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  Michael Fletcher is a senior writer with ESPN’s business and investigative group. Before that, he wrote for ESPN’s The Undefeated, concentrating on politics, criminal justice and social concerns. He invested 21 years at The Washington Post, where his beats included the nationwide economy, the White Home and race relations.The couple implicated by

retired NFL star Michael Oher of tricking him into a conservatorship soon after he turned 18 and taking all the profits from a blockbuster movie about his life filed a legal reaction Thursday in which they”vehemently rejected”enhancing themselves at Oher’s expense.In a four-page response to a petition Oher filed in Tennessee last month, Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy said the proceeds from the 2009 hit movie” The Blind Side “were divided equally among themselves, their 2 children and Oher. “All of the Tuohy family consisting of the petitioner consented to this plan, where each party would get 20%of proceeds paid,”the action said. The reaction went on to state the family received a part of the$225,000 paid to acclaimed author Michael Lewis, whose very popular book was the basis for the film.The couple also stated they got a$200,000 donation to their structure from the film’s profits. Oher had the opportunity to receive the very same amount for the charity of his choice but “stopped working to take the necessary action,”the action said.Editor’s Picks 2 Associated In the legal filing, the Tuohys also rejected ever telling Oher they planned to adopt him.

However, they acknowledged having actually utilized the term”adopt” in a”colloquial sense “to describe their relationship with Oher.”They never planned that reference to be seen with legal implication,” the action said.The Tuohys stated in the filing that they became Oher’s conservators just so he would be eligible to play college football at the University of Mississippi, the Tuohys ‘university.”When it became clear that the petitioner might rule out going to the University of Mississippi(“Ole Miss”)as an outcome of living with the Respondents, the NCAA made it clear that the only method he might participate in Ole Miss “was if Oher was somehow part of the family, the action stated.” Conservatorship was the tool selected to achieve this objective.”The story of the Tuohys and their efforts to help raise Oher out of hardship to the NFL was immortalized in the motion picture. Last month, Oher filed a petition in Shelby County court of probate declaring that a central aspect of the story– that the Tuohys had embraced him– was a lie created by the household to enhance itself.Instead, less than 3 months after Oher turned 18 in 2004, the petition said, the couple fooled him into signing a document making them his conservators, which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.In his court petition, Oher asked a judge to terminate the conservatorship given to the Tuohys in August 2004, for a full accounting of the money the Tuohys made using Oher’s name and to have the couple pay him his reasonable share of profits, along with unspecified countervailing and punitive damages.Attorneys for the Tuohys have stated openly that the household wants to end the conservatorship, an assertion repeated in their court filing.” Participants stand ready, prepared, and able to end the conservatorship by approval at any time,

“the file said.