Judge says she is ending conservatorship between former NFL player Michael Oher and Memphis couple

FILE - Leigh Ann Tuohy and Sean Tuohy arrives during the 82nd Academy Awards, March 7, 2010, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. The Memphis couple who took in former NFL offensive lineman Michael Oher when he was in high school denied in court documents filed Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, that they used a legal agreement between them to get rich at his expense and lied about intending to adopt him. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File) (Matt Sayles, AP2010)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A Tennessee judge said Friday she is ending a conservatorship agreement between former NFL player Michael Oher and a Memphis couple who took him in when he was in high school.

Shelby County Probate Court Judge Kathleen Gomes said she is terminating the agreement reached in 2004 that allowed Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy to control Oher’s finances. Oher signed the agreement when he was 18 and living with the couple as he was being recruited by colleges as a star high school football player.

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Gomes said she was not dismissing the case. Oher has asked that the Tuohys provide a financial accounting of money that may have come to them as part of the agreement, claiming that they used his name, image and likeness to enrich themselves and lied to him that the agreement meant the Tuohys were adopting him.

Gomes said she was disturbed that such an agreement was ever reached. She said she had never seen in her 43-year career a conservatorship agreement reached with someone who was not disabled.

“I cannot believe it got done,” she said.

Oher and Tuohys listened in by video conference call but did not speak.


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