Gollin Sued For Slander in Federal Court

[Herbert Spencer]

The gist of the complaint is that after approving Dr. Dolphin's medical school, certain Liberian officials then sought a $6,000 a month bribe from him. When he refused to pay it they embarked on a campaign intended to destroy him and his school. They apparently found a willing stooge in the gullible fool Gollin, who repeated the lies without bothering to verify the facts. Sound familiar?

179. Dr. George Gollin has numerous links on the Internet about SLSOM being a "fake" school and a "diploma mill". Many of his postings are fantastic, speculative, and imaginary. One MS Power Point online presentation states that, "St. Luke is a diploma mill."; "U.S. State Dept. official says it's fake"; "Liberia says it's illegal"; "A Ghanaian official said it's bogus"; "It's really run by a small group of Americans"; "Dr. Dolphin is an owner of Bio-Life Laboratorie"?; "Dr. David Karam and Steve Arnett are owners of SLSOM"; and "St. Luke School of Medicine: www.stluke.edu an entirely fake medical school run from TX, KY, CA."

180. Gollin stated in a recent interview that he intends to put SLSOM out of business. Gollin recently presented a 91-page document to the Ghana National Accreditation Board full of false, libelous, and slanderous statements about Dr. Dolphin, Dr. Dolphin's wife, Susanna Mitchell, and SLSOM. The document was submitted to the Ghana Court of Appeals by the National Accreditation Board to appeal a judgment in favor of St. Luke School of Medicine-Ghana (not the same institution as St. Luke School of Medicine-Liberia).

181. The Ghana National Accreditation Board submitted Gollin's document to cast doubt on the credibility of Dr. Dolphin and SLSOM because SLSOM-Ghana won accreditation in Ghana through a decision of the Ghana High Court in October 2009. In Gollin's document, he claims that Dr. Dolphin is a fraudulent criminal, despite the fact that he was never arrested in Liberia or sued for fraud by anyone from Liberia, or anywhere else in the world including the United States before, during, or after SLSO's crisis in Liberia in 2005. Gollin accused Dr. Dolphin of being a fraud. Furthermore, he accused Dr. Dolphin's wife of embezzlement without any proof, only naked assertions that cause her name and reputation to be publicly disparaged in Ghana.

182. The University of Illinois Urbana is complicit in its support of George Gollin, who uses University of Illinois letterhead and insignia to lend credibility to his misinformation. The University of Illinois has permitted Gollin to use its computers and servers in Gollin's campaign against SLSOM. Gollin has slandered and libeled SLSOM in more than two dozen speaking engagements, as listed on his University of Illinois website: http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/g-gollin/ . Gollin's University of Illinois website [has] seven direct links full of false and misleading information about SLSOM.

The complaint alleges Causes of Action for Trade Libel...

197....Dr. George Gollin and the University of Illinois have and continue to disparage SLSOM and its services, students, diplomas and degrees based on information gleaned solely from the aforementioned sources.

...as well as Intentional Interference with Prospective Business Advantage, False Imprisonment, Negligence, Loss of Consortium, Conversion, [Denial of] Due Process, [Denial of] Equal Protection, Conspiracy to Commit Civil Rights Violations (Gollin does not appear to be included in this count), Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress.

This could be the first of many such actions against Gollin and UI. This is the very thing UI feared when they ordered Gollin to close his defamatory website several years ago. This is the sort of thing against which the State of Oregon sought to protect itself when they ordered Gay Al to take remedial courses in defamation law. Now the floodgates of litigation could be opening, hopefully to sweep away the rubbish that for too long has been soiling the academic environment.