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Jennifer Jordan (Mortenson's longtime friend) and Jeff Rhoads began attempting to refute the claims against Mortenson and made a 2016 documentary 3000 Cups of Tea. In the film and interviews Jordan claims that the extensively-researched and sourced accusations against Mortenson put forward by 60 Minutes and Jon Krakauer are largely not true.

In May 2015, the Montana Attorney General stated that Central Asia Institute and Mortenson had completed the terms of a three-year compliance monitoring period, and CAI stated that the IRS had completed its examination of the nonprofit. The organization reported that it was having a return in donors and rise in contributions.

As of 2014, CAI reports it has established or significantly supported over 300 projects, including 191 schools, in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.

In January 2014, Mortenson was interviewed on Today by Tom Brokaw. He apologized and acknowledged that he had let a lot of people down, and said "I failed in many ways, and it's an important lesson."

In August 2014 Krakauer wrote a follow-up article for The Daily Beast in which he stated that an audit of CAI's overseas projects indicated that the charity was still "beset by widespread corruption" and that Mortenson remaining as the public face of the charity was not "in the best interest of the charity or the people it serves". He concluded that "anyone thinking about donating to CAI should probably reconsider".

Jordan said in 2014: "We are still investigating this story. So far, our findings are indicating that the majority of the allegations are grossly misrepresented to make him appear in the worst possible light, or are outright false. Yes, Greg is a bad manager and accountant, and he is the first to admit that, but he is also a tireless humanitarian with a crucially important mission."

Bullock also wrote in the report that "CAI's mission is worthwhile and important," and "Its accomplishments, driven by the vision and dedication of Mortenson, are significant – as even their harshest critics acknowledge."

After a one-year investigation, Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock reached a settlement with Mortenson in which he agreed not to file criminal charges, but sought restitution for book royalties, speaking and travel fees, promotional costs, and inappropriate personal bills that Mortenson charged to the CAI. Under the terms of a settlement with Bullock, Mortenson agreed to reinstate $1 million to the charity, which included credits for repayments already made. In October 2013, Mortenson completed the repayments to CAI, fulfilling the terms of the 2012 settlement with Bullock.

In May 2011, Jean Price and Michele Reinhart, and Dan Donovan, a Great Falls attorney, filed a class action lawsuit against Mortenson on behalf of readers, asking federal judge James Malloy in Missoula to place all proceeds from the purchases of Mortenson's books into a trust to be used for humanitarian purposes. Several named plaintiffs dropped the lawsuit after confessing they had never read the books. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in federal court in May 2012. U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon chided the plaintiffs for presenting arguments that he called imprecise, flimsy, and speculative. An appeals suit was dropped by the 9th District Federal Circuit Court on October 10, 2013.

On October 6, 2013, after a lengthy lawsuit filed by Central Asia Institute, Philadelphia Insurance company was ordered by Magistrate Judge Jeremy Lynch to repay Central Asia Institute $1.2 million to pay for legal costs involved in the lawsuits and investigations.

Mortenson was accused of financial irregularities in handling donations to the CAI and falsehoods in his books. In 2012, Mortenson repaid $1 million to the CAI after an inquiry by the Montana Attorney General, though no criminality was found.

In April 2012, after a year long investigation by the Montana attorney general, Mortenson agreed to repay $1 million to the CAI. The Montana inquiry had found that he had misspent over $6 million of the organization's money, although no criminality was found. Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said: "Mr Mortenson may not have intentionally deceived the board or his employees, but his disregard for and attitude about basic record-keeping and accounting for his activities essentially had the same effect."

Mortenson and David Oliver Relin are co-authors of the New York Times bestselling book Three Cups of Tea. Listen to the Wind, a 32-page book Young Reader's version of Three Cups of Tea for ages 4–8, was written by Greg Mortenson and illustrated by Susan Roth. It was a New York Times bestseller for 97 weeks. As detailed in a New York Times article, Relin "suffered emotionally and financially as basic facts in the book were called into question" and ultimately committed suicide on November 15, 2012. In 2009, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan was written by Greg Mortenson as a sequel to Three Cups of Tea.

Mortenson has since admitted in a 2011 interview that the timing in the Korphe account in Three Cups of Tea is inaccurate, and that the events actually took place long after his descent from K2, over a longer period of time and during separate trips.

In April 2011, 60 Minutes and author Jon Krakauer accused Mortenson of fabrication in his non-fiction books and of financial improprieties at his charity, Central Asia Institute.

On the April 17, 2011 broadcast of CBS News' 60 Minutes, correspondent Steve Kroft alleged inaccuracies in Mortenson's books Three Cups of Tea and its sequel, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as financial improprieties in the operation of the Central Asia Institute.

In an April 2011 Outside magazine interview, Greg Mortenson insisted that Krakauer contacted him only once and inaccurately claimed that he had been trying to get a hold of him for some time. He claimed although he arranged to meet with Krakauer, the interview was eventually cancelled "once I realized how deep and dirty this whole thing was".

In response to Krakauer's allegations, CAI produced a comprehensive 'Master Project List' on work CAI had completed, or currently was then working on. The list was released in December 2011.

Mortenson lives in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife Tara Bishop, a clinical psychologist, and their two children, Amira and Khyber. In 2011, Mortenson was diagnosed with hypoxia and had surgery for an aneurysm and an atrial septal defect, an event which exactly coincided with the airing of the 60 Minutes expose and the release of Krakauer's accompanying book.

From 2006 through 2011, Greg Mortenson promoted his book as well as fundraising and promoting girls' education through public speaking events at schools throughout the United States. Travel expenses for his speaking engagements were paid for by Central Asia Institute through the end of 2010. Mortenson personally kept the money received in exchange for his service as a public speaker as well as royalties from the sale of his book. In 2009, the total cost of his book promotion, fundraising, and awareness-building for girls education paid for by CAI amounted to $4.6 million.

Three Cups of Tea describes his travels in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province including his escape from a 2003 firefight between Afghan opium warlords, how he was subject to two fatwās by conservative Islamist clerics for educating girls, and receiving hate mail and threats from fellow Americans for helping educate Muslim children.

Mortenson describes the origins of his humanitarian work in his best-selling (but later discredited) book, Three Cups of Tea. He states he traveled to northern Pakistan in 1993 to climb the world's second-highest mountain, K2, as a memorial to his sister, Christa. After more than 70 days on the mountain located in the Karakoram range, Mortenson failed to reach the summit. Earlier, Mortenson and fellow climber, Scott Darsney, were also involved in a 75-hour life-saving rescue of another climber, Etienne Fine, which put them in a weakened state. After the rescue, he descended the mountain and set out with a local Balti porter, Mouzafer Ali, to the nearest city.

Mortenson wrote a statement in response to the allegations against him that were published in the Bozeman Chronicle: "I stand by the information conveyed in my book, and by the value of CAI's work in empowering local communities to build and operate schools that have educated more than 60,000 students", and added, "The time about our final days on K2 and ongoing journey to Korphe village and Skardu is a compressed version of events that took place in the fall of 1993..." However, writing for Outside Online, Grayson Schaffer investigated Mortenson's claims regarding Korphe, and found them likely spurious, as there was no plausible way for Mortenson to have ended up in Korphe while descending K2 in the route he claimed. Additionally, Schaffer concludes that there is no evidence that Mortenson was actually an accomplished Himalayan climber, even though he claimed to have climbed six Himalayan peaks.

In 1978, Concordia College's football team won the NAIA Division III national championship with a 7-0 win over Findlay, Ohio. Mortenson graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in liberal studies and an associate degree in nursing.

After high school, Mortenson served in the U.S. Army in Germany from 1975–77 and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. Following his discharge, he attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 1977-79 on an athletic (football) scholarship.

In the early 1970s, when he was 15 years old, Mortenson and his family left Tanzania and moved back to Minnesota. He attended Ramsey High School in Roseville, Minnesota, from 1973–75, where he graduated.

Greg Mortenson (born December 27, 1957) is an American professional speaker, writer, veteran, and former mountaineer. He is a co-founder and former executive director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute and the founder of the educational charity Pennies for Peace.

Mortenson was born in 1957 in St. Cloud, Minnesota. His parents, Irvin and Jerene, went with the Lutheran Church to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1958 to be teachers in at a girls' school in the Usambara mountains. In 1961, Dempsey became a fundraiser and development director for the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, the first teaching hospital in Tanzania. Jerene was the founding principal of International School Moshi. Spending his early childhood and adolescence in Tanzania, Mortenson learned to speak fluent Swahili.