Business partner of Falwells says affair with evangelical power couple spanned seven years
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON – In a claim likely to intensify the controversy surrounding one of the most influential figures in the American Christian conservative movement, a business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr has come forward to say he had a years-long sexual relationship involving Falwell’s wife and the evangelical leader.
Giancarlo Granda says he was 20 when he met Jerry and Becki Falwell while working as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel in March 2012. Starting that month and continuing into 2018, Granda told Reuters that the relationship involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on.
Granda showed Reuters emails, text messages and other evidence that he says demonstrate the sexual nature of his relationship with the couple, who have been married since 1987. “Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda said in an interview. Now 29, he described the liaisons as frequent – “multiple times per year” – and said the encounters took place at hotels in Miami and New York, and at the Falwells’ home in Virginia.
His friendship with the Falwells eventually soured, Granda told Reuters, in part because he wanted to dissolve his ties with the couple and fell into a business dispute with them.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-falwell-relationship/
Mr Granda has a more interesting version of the story than Falwell. The only person we're not hearing from here is Ms Falwell.
I'd love to know what was in those texts, emails and other evidence Granda showed to Reuters.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Cue the victimization:
(Falwell) saying the man involved had been threatening to reveal the relationship “to deliberately embarrass my wife, family, and Liberty University unless we agreed to pay him substantial monies.”
(Falwell) stepped down after an uproar sparked by a photo he posted on social media that showed him with his pants unzipped, stomach exposed and arm high around the waist of a woman who was not his wife. Falwell has said the photo was taken at a costume party during a family vacation.
Ah, the old "costume party" excuse.
Falwell said he was seeking mental health counseling amid the “trauma” of the situation and that he remains “fully devoted” to his wife.
The statement said that “while her indiscretion may have been more obvious and apparent, I realized that there were important smaller things I needed to do better too.”
ROFL