Michael Oher reportedly accuses Tuohys of 'false' claims about money made off his story

BALTIMORE - Former Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Michael Oher, the subject of the 2009 film "The Blind Side," claims the Tuohy family made "demonstrably false" claims about the money they made off his story, according to a report by ESPN.

Oher was a first-round draft pick by the Ravens in the 2009 NFL Draft. "The Blind Side" depicts that Oher was a teenager in poverty when the Tuohy family took him in and adopted him before he went to play college football at Mississippi and then the NFL.

However, Oher filed a lawsuit in a Tennessee court claiming the family took advantage of him, tricked him into a conservatorship and made money off of his name.

He accused Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy of falsely representing themselves as his adoptive parents, saying he discovered last February the conservatorship agreed to in 2004 was not the arrangement he thought it was — and that it provided him no familial relationship with them. He claims the Tuohys have kept him in the dark about financial dealings related to his name, image and likeness during the 19-year life of the agreement.  

Back in September, the judge ended the conservatorship agreement between Oher and the Memphis couple who took him in when he was in high school.

According to ESPN, in a 16-page document filed on Tuesday, Oher alleges the Tuohys did not account for $2.5 million taken from him in 2011 when he was in his third NFL season.

At the time, the Tuohys were his conservators, which gave them the legal right to forge business agreements in his name and required them to report their financial dealings with Oher to the court.

"This $2.5 million was supposedly taken to be invested for Mr. Oher, but the former Co-Conservators took the $2.5 million without permission from this Court, without any notice to this Court, and without having the Court appoint a guardian" to protect the ward's interest, the legal filing said. "The former Co-Conservators should be required to account for this money."

ESPN reports that the filing also says that the Tuohys' financial accounting does not mention an unspecified sum of money Oher put into a checking account he shared with the Tuohys. The legal filing alleges that Leigh Anne Tuohy regularly wrote checks from the account, including to herself for cash, without notifying the court.

Oher filed a petition in August asking for a full accounting of the money earned off the use of his name and story. He also asked to be paid what he is due along with interest.

In the court filing, according to ESPN, Oher said he was cheated because the "Tuohys alone decided how the earnings were to be divided, allocating 80% of the money for themselves and their two children, and giving 20% to Oher."

"'The Blind Side' is Mr. Oher's story," the latest filing said. "Without Mr. Oher, there would be no movie. The Tuohys had it backwards: 80% of the proceeds should have gone to the petitioner and 20% to the Tuohy family, not the other way around."

According to ESPN, In his filing, Oher asked the court to order the Tuohys to produce a more detailed financial accounting of their business dealings with him. The filing also asked the court to "sanction" the Tuohys for what it calls their "willful failure to fulfill their obligations" to both Oher and the court.

The Tuohys have admitted they never legally adopted Oher. However, they still deny they cheated him out of money.