DePaul moves to dismiss all charges in first complaint of Lenti case, court declines
Jonathan Aguilar | The DePaulia
Head Coach Eugene Lenti, pictured here during the Big East Championship, led the Blue Demons to the NCAA Tournament for the 20th time in his tenure with the program.
DePaul filed a motion earlier this month to dismiss all charges made by Dr. Jenny Conviser, who has accused DePaul of covering up former softball coach Eugene Lenti’s history of abuse.
The university’s legal team, McGuireWoods, claims Conviser is “bootstrapping” herself and her counseling business to Lenti’s sudden exit for personal gain, according to a document obtained by The DePaulia. They say that Conviser, who is suing the university on six counts as previously reported by The DePaulia, has no legal standing with her claims.
“We intend to mount a rigorous defense on behalf of DePaul University to the baseless claims made in the complaint filed by Dr. Conviser,” said Mark Hubbard, a spokesman for DePaul’s legal team.
The DePaulia was able to confirm that DePaul’s motion to dismiss the first complaint has been declined as moot. DePaul has until July 23 to respond to the amended complaint that was filed earlier this week. A court date has been set for Sept. 3, 2020.
Conviser is suing DePaul for Title IX retaliation, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of faith and fair dealing, indemnification, defamation and false light invasion of privacy.
The university’s legal team is claiming that Conviser’s timeline is not as clear as she suggests in the lawsuit, which they say throws Conviser’s accusation of breach of contract into question.
“While DePaul University does not normally comment on pending litigation, it is important to point out that Dr. Jenny Conviser has treated student patients at DePaul as recently as March of this year (2020) and remains an independent contractor to the university,” Hubbard said.
Conviser’s lawyers told The DePaulia that she has not seen any “DePaul referred new patients since she blew the whistle on Lenti in 2018 and certainly not since the COVID crisis.” It’s unclear whether she has seen old patients referred by DePaul since then.
Regarding the alleged Title IX retaliation, DePaul’s legal team says that Conviser has no statutory standing — which is different from jurisdicional standing and must present and presents the question whether the plaintiff “falls within the class of plaintiffs whom Congress has authorized to sue.”
Since Conviser is not a DePaul employee but instead an independent contractor hired by the university, she falls outside of the established “zone of interest,” according to the document.
“She therefore does not, and cannot, allege deprivation of any educational benefit,” the suit reads. “Rather, she simply alleges that DePaul stopped sending her business. Thus, to allow Conviser’s suit to proceed would open the Title IX floodgates to anyone who has ever crossed commercial paths with a college or university. That cannot be right.”
Conviser is also trying to prove that because she reported Lenti’s alleged verbal abuse in 2016 and found out about Lenti allegedly punching his assistant coach in the face in 2018, that DePaul retaliated by terminating her contract in April 2018.
But DePaul is arguing that those incidents with the university don’t support her retaliation claim because “she alleges no facts connecting those DePaul conversations to DePaul’s decision to stop sending her patients in June 2018.”
Conviser was informed by one of her therapists that a DePaul softball player saw Lenti punch his associate head coach in the face, and advised her staff member to counsel the player to report the incident to DePaul’s Title IX office. DePaul, meanwhile, argues that Conviser had no role in reporting or the underlying incident.
According to the document, Conviser’s attempt to connect the 2016 and 2017 reports to the alleged 2018 decline in patient referrals is only speculation.
In the document, DePaul also attached the contract that was signed between Conviser and DePaul in 2017, which shows that DePaul may refer student-athletes to Ascend, but student-athletes are not required to use any of AscendCHC’s services. In the first lawsuit filed by Conviser in April, the suit claimed that DePaul “agreed” to refer student-athletes to Ascend, which is inaccurate, according to the contract.
DePaul is using this as evidence that the university did not breach the contract because they had no obligation to refer student-athletes to Ascend.
DePaul also argues that Conviser has not adequately proven defamation or false light. According to the document, Conviser didn’t provide the words that are considered actionable and Illinois courts allow an attorney to defend its client without the possibility of civil liability for their statements.
Conviser’s lawyers wrote to DePaul in February and received a reply from the Senior Associate General Counsel Laura Warren — who is no longer with the university. In the email, Warren wrote that Conviser “did not get her facts straight.” But, according to DePaul’s legal team, Conviser cannot sue for this statement because DePaul’s in-house counsel wrote in defending the university from a possible lawsuit.
Conviser said in her first complaint that DePaul defamed her “on more than one occasion,” but, according to DePaul, has failed to provide sufficient evidence of those instances.
In the document, DePaul says that Conviser’s defamation and false light claims are an “afterthought,” and the court should dismiss them.
“This case is not really about Dr. Jenny Conviser,” the suit reads. “It is even less about her company, Ascend Consultation in Health Care, LLC. It is about former DePaul softball coach Eugene Lenti, who separated from DePaul two years ago. Even by Conviser’s own telling, she and her company were barely even a footnote in that story. But Conviser has recognized that Lenti’s high-profile separation presents an opportunity, and seeks to capitalize on that opportunity by bootstrapping herself and Ascend to Lenti’s sudden exit.”
The language in DePaul’s memorandum in support of its motion to dismiss better puts into context the amendment recently made to Conviser’s complaint. Many of the changes made to her complaint reframed the case to more closely circle around her involvement.
In Conviser’s new complaint, the focus is placed largely on her role in allegedly exposing Lenti’s verbal abuse in 2016 and working with one of her therapists and a student-athlete to report Lenti’s 2018 assault of an associate head coach. She is also now claiming that DePaul Athletic Director Jean Lenti Ponsetto didn’t do anything to investigate or remove her brother.
DePaul’s legal team claims that Conviser was in the “peripheral presence” in the events that took place in 2016 and 2018. But Conviser says she was at the “heart” of both taking on Lenti Ponsetto and taking down Lenti by having him eventually removed from DePaul for his abusive conduct towards his players.
Even though DePaul was never required to refer student-athletes to Conviser and her company, Conviser claims that DePaul’s senior administrators often referred to her as “DePaul’s lead mental health provider.”
The DePaulia reported Wednesday that the case has been moved to federal court.
“The defense will show that DePaul takes the welfare and well-being of all students very seriously,” Hubbard said. “It will further reveal the university conducts thorough reviews and ensures appropriate internal processes following any student complaint of inappropriate conduct by any administrator, teacher, coach, staff member or fellow student.”
UPDATE 6/26/20: This story has been updated to include a statement from Conviser’s lawyers.
Seriously? Is DePaul actually arguing that IT IS OKAY to retaliate and ruin Jenny Conviser who was a part of our campus for 13 years just a week after she brought Title IX issues to light because she was not technically a student or employee? President Esteban and the Board of Trustees should not retaliate against ANYONE who follows Title IX.
This is not hard to figure out. Athletics and Title IX should have investigated the reports of calling girls “f-cking whores”. Why didn’t they? Kathryn Statz who worked for Jean Lenti-Ponsetto concealed it for years. Title IX should have investigated HER actions. Why didn’t they? Isn’t that mandatory under Title IX? They didn’t want to know or deal with it. That is why Obama made sexual abuse part of Title IX.
Student Affairs and Statz benefitted from ruining Conviser a week or so after Conviser ensured that a student who witnessed physical violence came forward to the Title IX Office. Conviser had worked with DePaul for 13 years before that. With the retaliation and Conviser’s ruination, Student Affairs got more counseling staff, budget, salary increases probably for only the top two or three people and not the fools actually doing the work, and chance for personal clout with Jean Lenti-Ponsetto so they were all in on the retaliation and ruination of Conviser along with Athletics.
Around this time, after a very short time away from DePaul unsuccessfully “consulting” other institutions, Statz from Athletics reappears at DePaul and is hired as a Title IX investigator with NO investigator experience and was rewarded for her Title IX offenses and ties to Athletics. Follow the money trail. People love retaliation because they can jump in and take meat from the dead carcuss.
Where are the Student Affairs trainers who point their little fingers at us and say “That’s not okay” and lecture us on Title IX? Hypocrites.
As Michael who commented on the last article about this said, the General Counsel Office should have investigated, controlled, contained this. They would not even meet with Conviser or talk with her per their own letter to her. Once again, a Title IX investigation should have taken place which would include actually TALKING with Conviser. Isn’t that mandatory under Title IX?
The General Counsel Office embarrassed the President and Board of Trustees because it could not work with people to figure out what needed to happen and manage this. They ensure DePaul follows the law or fix it if problems happen, but could not do either. DePaul is now a national disgrace as Michael said. Shame on all.
This is why #metoo won’t work. Women do not support women.
Student Affairs hired Statz. This may answer the questions on Twitter how she got that job. Human Resources say reference needed and that probably Jean. DePaul may say saved money firing Conviser but doubt it.
People in Student Affairs say there was NO other investigator job and they just made one up for Statz. That dirty.
Everyone in athletics knew Statz left because she was sick of lying and covering up abuse to protect Jean Lenti Ponsetto! Shame on Student Affairs for hiring her…there needs to be a full blown investigation done…immediately! #standbyconviser
Karen thanks. I’ve got no direct knowledge of anything but see lots from lawsuit, DePaulia comments, social media. Putting pieces together best can to try to figure bad situation out like everybody else doing.
I know no retaliation supposed to happen since I involved in Title IX case. I checked over and over and over and told no retaliation like expelling me could happen and on website back then. Not supposed to happen.