A prominent Memphis couple with a longstanding relationship to former NFL player Michael Oher want to end a conservatorship that he is challenging in court, their lawyers said.
Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy intend to enter into a consent order to end the conservatorship, lawyer Randall Fishman told reporters on Wednesday.
Oher filed a petition on Monday in a Tennessee probate court accusing the Tuohys of lying to him by having him sign papers making them his conservators rather than his adoptive parents nearly two decades ago.
Oher, now 37, wants a full accounting of assets considering his life story produced millions of dollars, though he says he received nothing from the Oscar-nominated movie The Blind Side.
He accuses the Tuohys of falsely representing themselves as his adoptive parents, saying that he discovered in February 2023 that the conservatorship was not the arrangement he thought it was — and that it provided him no familial relationship to the Tuohys.
But the Tuohys’ attorneys said Oher knew very well that he had not been adopted.
Mr Fishman said Oher mentioned the Tuohys being conservators for him three times in I Beat The Odds: From Homeless, To The Blind Side, Oher’s first book in 2011.
The couple’s attorneys also said that the Tuohys and Oher have been estranged for about a decade.
Steve Farese said Oher has become “more and more vocal and more and more threatening” over the past decade or so, and this is “devastating for the family”.
The Tuohys have called the allegations a ridiculous shakedown attempt, and “a court of law is no place to play”, Mr Fishman said.
In a statement released by their lawyers on Tuesday, the Tuohys said Oher had threatened before the court filing to plant a negative news story about them unless they paid him $15 million.
Oher’s lawyers did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
The conservatorship paperwork was filed months after Oher turned 18 in May 2004.
Oher accuses the Tuohys of never taking legal action to assume custody from the Tennessee Department of Human Services before he turned 18, though he was told to call them Mom and Dad.
Oher alleges the Tuohys had him sign paperwork almost immediately after he moved in as part of the adoption process.
Oher says he was “falsely advised” that it would be called a conservatorship because he was already 18, but that adoption was the intent.
The couple did not simply adopt Oher, Mr Fishman said, because the conservatorship was the fastest way to satisfy the NCAA’s concerns that the Tuohys were not simply steering a talented athlete to Mississippi, their alma mater where Oher later attended.
Oher, who has never been a fan of the movie about his life, asks that the Tuohys be sanctioned and required by the probate court to pay damages. He asks to be paid what he is due, along with interest.
