The former executive director of the largest youth soccer organization in Central Oregon, who is already under fire for allegedly stealing $80,000, is suing the group and the president of its board of directors for defamation.

Former Bend FC Timbers Executive Director Tara Bilanski is seeking $5.1 million in damages from the organization and the president of its board, Michelle Hart, according to court documents filed in Deschutes County Circuit Court on Aug. 17. Bilanski is being sued by the soccer organization in a separate lawsuit for allegedly stealing thousands of dollars in entry fees for its summer camps.

The defamation lawsuit includes alleged statements from Hart, other members of the Timbers’ board and attorneys for the Timbers. It alleges the statements from these officials “either constitute libel and/or they attack Bilanski in her business and profession and relate to her ability to perform her job duties.”

Bill Buchanan, an attorney for the Timbers, a nonprofit soccer club with thousands of competing players in Central Oregon that is affiliated with the Portland Timbers, had no comment Tuesday.

“We’ll try the case in court is my response,” he said.

Documents filed in the lawsuit provide new details around the scandal that has enveloped the youth soccer organization since last fall.

The lawsuit includes angry statements Hart allegedly made to over 80 people in an email on Aug. 18, 2021, according to court documents.

In that email, Hart allegedly describes “the club leadership’s disrespectfulness and incompetence” as reason for a fallout of parents in the group and says coaches were “forced out” because they questioned how the organization was run, according to court documents.

The email also says “current leadership is attempting to strong-arm the board into resigning because we are demanding better,” according to court documents. It describes as “a coup” a change in nonprofit bylaws that would replace board members “with staff who will be the board’s voting members. Essentially, no outside accountability — the staff will be the boss of themselves.”

Bilanski was hired as director of operations for the Timbers in 2014 and was fired from her position last summer. Megan Burgess, an attorney representing Bilanski, did not return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday.

The lawsuit also alleges that board members accused Bilanski of giving illegal raises to staff, cherry-picking board members who weren’t elected to serve, and it accuses them of saying that “there is a long history of corruption over the years which was brought to light by the board of directors and resulted in Bilanski’s termination.”

In addition, the court documents include comments allegedly made on a Zoom call by Timbers attorney Mark Basurto that was posted on YouTube. Basurto said that a $12,221 transaction in August 2021 went to the former executive director — Bilanski — for employee compensation for her work organizing camps in July 2021. This wasn’t part of her contract, Basurto alleged.

Lastly, the lawsuit includes statements allegedly made by Buchanan, a Timbers attorney, in a complaint to the Oregon Youth Soccer Association. Among the statements: Buchanan describes in the complaint that “one or more” individuals “engaged in a criminal enterprise to steal trade secrets, harm (Bend FC Timbers), and cover up other various improprieties including the fraudulent alteration of employment contracts and taking of money from (Bend FC Timbers) without authorization.”

Bilanski and the organization’s former Operations Director Jennifer Davin are accused in a separate lawsuit of stealing $80,000 from the soccer organization by pocketing entry fees for its summer soccer camps.

Deschutes County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Gunnels said Monday that the office is still investigating possible criminal charges against parties involved in the alleged stealing of funds from the youth summer soccer camps. He declined to say who was being investigated.

The Bend Police Department and the state Department of Justice have also opened investigations related to the allegations in the lawsuit, according to filings in the case.

Bilanski, as well as four former full-time staff members and a coach, have asserted their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in the pending lawsuit.

The next hearing in that case is scheduled Oct. 6.