Every so often, something comes across the newswire that stumps four seasoned editors. Wait, didn't this happen already? We covered this, right?
In March, a federal judge ruled against Oklahoma State University and its "Gift of a Lifetime" fundraiser, saying that the university's athletic fundraising arm and its top booster, T. Boone Pickens, could not recoup $33 million invested in life insurance policies for 27 athletics boosters that named the university as beneficiary.
Every so often, something comes across the newswire that stumps four seasoned editors. Wait, didn't this happen already? We covered this, right?
In March, a federal judge ruled against Oklahoma State University and its "Gift of a Lifetime" fundraiser, saying that the university's athletic fundraising arm and its top booster, T. Boone Pickens, could not recoup $33 million invested in life insurance policies for 27 athletics boosters that named the university as beneficiary.
Late Tuesday, a Payne County judge did the same. In fact, the ruling is so identical in every respect that you could read the AB Newswire's March 13 report and simply put "Associate District Judge Stephen Kistler" in place of "Judge Jorge A. Solis" in the earlier story.
"Our clients view the Oklahoma state court's order of dismissal, on the heels of the Dallas federal court's recent entry of judgment in their favor, as conclusive proof of the lack of merit in Cowboy Athletics' and T. Boone Pickens' claims against them," William A. Brewer III, an attorney for Summit Alliance Financial and Larry Anders, the general agents in the transaction, said in a statement Wednesday.
Cowboys Athletics Inc. and Pickens' appeal of the federal ruling is pending, and - amazingly - OSU spokesman Gary Shutt said in a statement yesterday that the plaintiffs plan to appeal Kistler's order, too.
