Miles denies settlement with accuser
Scooter Hobbs
Former LSU head football coach Les Miles has denied a newspaper report that he reached a private settlement with a former female student intern who had accused him of harassment.
The Advocate | The Times-Picayune story, citing three unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter, said the allegations came to light as part of LSU’s independent investigation into the way it has handled complaints of sexual misconduct.
The law firm Husch Blackwell is handling the investigation.
The newspaper reported the private settlement, which reportedly occurred about a decade ago, came after a student intern in the athletic department accused Miles of “hitting on her.”
“That’s not true,” Miles said in denying that he made unwelcome advances.
Miles, now head coach at Kansas, did not directly address the report that he made a private settlement with the intern.
Jim Sabourin, the university’s vice president of strategic communications, said, “As part of the Husch Blackwell review and our internal investigations, we have heard about a settlement but LSU is not a party to it and we have not seen it.”
An attorney for Miles, Peter Ginsberg of New York, said in an email to the newspaper that the reports of a Miles settlement with the student were “discernibly incomplete and inaccurate, and its publication would recklessly cast Mr. Miles in a false light.”
The Husch Blackwell investigation is expected to release its full report to the university next week.
Butch Dill