A former Oral Roberts University professor who is suing the university has been plaintiff and defendant in at least half a dozen lawsuits and has been investigated in a stock scheme in Arkansas, records show.

Since 2000, Tim Brooker has filed at least four state and federal lawsuits against various officials in Arkansas and other states. Brooker also has been a defendant in at least two civil lawsuits during that time, records show.

All of the lawsuits were thrown out and none resulted in judgments, records show.

Brooker is one of three former professors suing Oral Roberts University, Richard Roberts and other defendants. The suit claims Brooker was forced to resign and his wife, Paulita, and Professor John Swails were wrongfully fired.

The suit claims the actions came after Tim Brooker and Swails gave the university's regents a document containing various allegations involving Roberts and his wife. The suit also claims Roberts ordered Brooker and students in Brooker's government class to work for Randi Miller's campaign for mayor of Tulsa.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of suits Brooker has filed or been named as a defendant in, records show.

Sheriff dispute: Former Benton County, Ark., Sheriff Andy Lee, who served seven terms in office before retiring in 2002, was a frequent target of Brooker's lawsuits and claims, records show.

Lee said when he first met Brooker, Brooker was advocating parole of a convicted rapist to Benton County, Ark. Lee said he declined to support the request, which angered Brooker.

The man, Wayne DuMond, had been convicted of raping a teenage girl who was a distant relative of Bill Clinton. DuMond's case had become a national news story in the early 1990s when Clinton, then governor, intervened to halt DuMond's parole, according to news accounts.

Brooker, who hosted a conservative talk radio show at the time, said he used his show to call for DuMond's release.

''I just felt like he'd been mistreated,'' Brooker said during an interview last week.

DuMond was released in 1999 to Missouri, where he killed a woman the next year. DuMond died in prison two years ago.

Lee said the lawsuit against ORU by Brooker ''sounds like standard operating procedure to me.''

''They are good at creating images of what they allege is going on. They are very good at getting up to the line and not crossing it. . . . I think he's a very brilliant-minded person.''

But Brooker said the lawsuits were ''the only tool at the time to get the truth out.'' He said he had information about widespread corruption in Lee's office.

In 2000, Brooker sued Lee and nine other defendants in federal court in Arkansas, alleging the sheriff had violated the federal organized crime act known as RICO. Besides his radio show, Brooker was also an adjunct professor at John Brown University, a private Christian university in Siloam Springs, Ark., where he still lives.

Lee said he was cleared in all of the investigations and the lawsuits were all thrown out.

''You name it, every campaign season something came to the surface and was talked about on Tim Brooker's radio program,'' Lee said.

''They said I was stealing helicopter parts, selling helicopter parts; they said I had a cargo 180 aircraft parked behind the jail. They caused I forget how many state and federal investigations and they applied for two grand jury investigations.''

Jim Bolt: Brooker often filed his lawsuits with a business partner, Jim Bolt, the editor of an Arkansas online magazine. Records show Bolt has three previous convictions in Oklahoma and Arkansas and has served time in federal prison.

Brooker said he was aware of Bolt's criminal history but believed ''that he was really a changed man.''

In 2001, while employed by ORU, Brooker was named CEO of Golf Entertainment Inc., a publicly traded company. In a news release at the time, Brooker said the Georgia-based company had been inactive but had recently signed a deal with Genesis Trust of Bentonville, Ark. Golf Entertainment moved its offices to Springdale, Ark.

Brooker said then that Golf Entertainment planned to acquire broadcast television assets and operate television stations in Spanish language markets. Bolt was listed as chief operating officer and vice president of the company.

Brooker said he agreed to head the company but didn't really understand the details. He said Bolt asked him to head the company because Bolt, a convicted criminal, was prevented from doing so due to SEC regulations.

''I didn't realize he was going to use a publicly traded company. He asked me, 'Are you willing to do this?' and I said tentatively yes."

One year later, Golf Entertainment filed a federal suit under the RICO Act against 19 defendants, including the operators of an Internet Web site that provided investment advice. In a news release, Brooker was quoted as saying that his company was pursuing organized ''bashing'' of its stock on Internet chat rooms and message boards.

The Web site's operators countersued, naming Brooker and other defendants as part of a ''sham operation'' involving Golf Entertainment. The federal suit states that Golf Entertainment issued ''misleading news releases'' in an effort to inflate its stock, which the company planned to sell to the public.

Brooker said he did not write the news releases quoting him.

''Bolt wrote those things. . . . He was writing press releases that put words in my mouth.''

That month, in August 2002, U.S. Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate Golf Entertainment for alleged manipulation of stock and defrauding investors, according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

On Aug. 22, 2002, Brooker resigned as CEO of Golf Entertainment, citing a ''contractual conflict of interest'' with his job at Oral Roberts University, according to the Arkansas Business Journal. The resignation came after reporters for the Journal contacted ORU about Brooker while investigating his role in Golf Entertainment.

Brooker said by that time, he wasn't involved in running the company, though he was still listed as its CEO. He said ORU asked him to formally resign from Golf Entertainment and he agreed to do so.

Two months later, the Arkansas Securities Department issued a cease and desist order against Brooker, Bolt, Golf Entertainment and other related defendants, records show. The order states that the stock transfer and sales by Golf Entertainment and Genesis were in violation of Arkansas law.

"I had no idea," Brooker said of Golf Entertainment's operations. "I let them put my name on things and that was my big mistake. I didn't understand the stock laws."

In one SEC filing, the company states that Brooker holds dual doctorates in public sector administration and psychotherapy and is a "recognized expert in the field of performance based budgeting."

In 2003, Brooker filed a libel suit against the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal following a lengthy investigation by the newspaper into Golf Entertainment’s operations. The lawsuit was dismissed by a judge.

Oral Roberts University: Gary Richardson, the attorney who filed suit against ORU, said officials there were aware of Brooker’s lawsuits and dealings with Golf Entertainment and continued to employ him.

“Dr. Brooker was hired with his history being what it was and they continued to hire him,” Richardson said.

City Councilor Rick Westcott coordinated ORU’s government program and helped interview Brooker in 2001. He said the decision to hire Brooker was ultimately up to Swails.

Westcott said Brooker’s role in Golf Entertainment never came up during the interview process.

“Tim struck me as someone very knowledgeable about campaigns and citizen involvement in the political process,” Westcott said.

Ziva Branstetter 581-8378
ziva.branstetter@tulsaworld.com