WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY | Shumaker's Ex-Wife Speaks Out

Shumaker's Ex-Wife Speaks Out

By James Zambroski

(LOUISVILLE, August 7th, 2003, 10:30 a.m.) -- The controversy surrounding former UofL President Dr. John Shumaker continues with new revelations from his ex-wife, Lucy Craig. In an exclusive interview with our James Zambroski, she says Shumaker had inside information about the questions he would be asked when a University of Tennessee search committee interviewed him. And she says UT trustees were deceived and misled in other ways as well.

Shumaker's divorce became final Wednesday, ending a messy, public break-up that began last April. During our interview, Craig said she didn't know her marriage was in trouble until shortly before Shumaker took the job at UT, when Shumaker suddenly broke the news to her as they were having dinner.

"We had our hike, we were getting ready to have dinner, and my husband looked at me and said, 'I want to tell you that you're not going."

According to the 64-page divorce decree, Craig had allegedly told her husband that she "hated him" for seeking the UT job, and that she would "make him pay."

All lies, Craig says. "That language is foreign to me," she said. He made that up."

Craig said the fix was in at the UT job, that her husband was given questions in advance of his interview with the search committee that ultimately recommended he be hired as the second highest paid public university president in America.

"They (the questions) were to be emailed to John," Craig said. "And he told me about them, and I said, 'is the other candidate was getting them?'"

Craig says that up until Shumaker told her he was leaving her, she believed she was going to be the next First Lady of the UT.

"I looked these people in the eye and shook their hands, and said, 'I looked forward to coming to Tennessee, I look forward to being your First Lady.'"

Not long after that, Shumaker dropped his bomb over dinner.

"It was terribly embarrassing for me to have done that, to have put myself on the line like that, and the whole time he knew, I guess, that he wasn't going to take me."

Craig feels the UT board was misled into believing she would accompany her husband if he was hired. "They were absolutely betrayed and mislead," she said, adding that she would never have went along for the visit to UT if she knew Shumaker was going to divorce him.

Lucy said she was anticipating accompanying Shumaker to UT as his wife, and even had a closet full of clothes in the school's colors.

In other developments, the divorce papers released Wednesday indicate Shumaker applied for a marriage license to help a woman from China, who he employed to stay in this country.

During a sworn deposition in January, Shumaker told Craig's lawyers that he once applied for a marriage license to help a woman from China who was caring for his children avoid deportation.

"She was anxious to get an American Visa and we did apply for a marriage license in LaGrange in 1995 at some point, but never got married," Shumaker testified.

When asked if he intended to marry the woman, Shumaker responded: "That was not clear. We were trying to help her with Visa issues."

Louisville attorney Rusty O'Brien specializes in immigration law. Marriage to a U.S. citizen can slow deportation proceedings.Once the marriage is made, a series of petitions must then be filed.

Their divorce took 15 months, including a five-day trial in March. It was possibly one of the messiest public divorces in local history.

Craig said that, at one point, Shumaker told her, "I'm going to annihilate you."

Lucy Shumaker's claims that she made a success of her husband during his tenure at UofL were unsupported by the evidence, the judge ruled. Rumors of another woman, though not included in the final decree, were hurtful, Craig said. "It was humiliating, and I do have some bitterness."

Neither John Shumaker nor his office returned WAVE 3's calls Wednesday night.

At least one UT Trustee has called for an investigation into Shumaker's activities. A Tennessee Senator has called for his resignation.

Shumaker's purchase of a new airplane for the University of Tennessee triggered an investigation into his use of a state aircraft for personal business.

The University of Louisville, where Shumaker was president for seven years, has begun a separate investigation into his expenditures while he was president.

Previous Stories:

• Shumaker Scrutiny Continues
• Shumaker's Ex-Wife Claims Search For UT President Was Rigged
• Shumaker Failed To Disclose Position Held Outside UT
• UofL Officials Defend Shumaker
• Shumaker Accepted $10,000 'Gift' After Leaving Connecticut Job
• UT Auditing Shumaker's Expenditures

Online Reporter: James Zambroski

Online Producer: Michael Dever