Former PSU president disputes Freeh report
PHILADELPHIA — Ousted Penn State president Graham Spanier and his lawyers attacked a university-backed report on the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal on Wednesday, calling it a “blundering and indefensible indictment” as they fired a pre-emptive strike while waiting to hear if he’ll be charged in the case.
Lawyer Timothy Lewis called Louis Freeh, the former FBI director and federal judge behind the report, a “biased investigator” who piled speculation on top of innuendo to accuse Spanier in a cover-up of early abuse complaints.
“The Freeh report, as it pertains to Dr. Spanier, is a myth. And that myth ... ends today,” Lewis said at a downtown Philadelphia news conference.
Spanier did not attend. But he said in stories published hours later that he never understood the early complaints about Sandusky, who this year was convicted of molesting 10 boys, to be sexual.
“I’m very stunned by Freeh’s conclusion that — I don’t think he used the word ‘cover-up’; but he uses the word ‘concealed,”’ Spanier told The New Yorker magazine. “Why on earth would anybody cover up for a known child predator? Adverse publicity? For heaven’s sake! Every day I had to make some decision that got adverse publicity.”
Spanier told ABC that he was told only that Sandusky had been seen engaging in “horseplay” in a campus shower with a boy and he took that to mean “throwing water around, snapping towels.”
“I wish in hindsight that I would have known more about Jerry Sandusky and his terrible, terrible hidden past so that I could have intervened because it would have been my instinct to do so,” he said.
At the news conference, Lewis, also a former federal judge, complained that Freeh never interviewed key witnesses, ignored inconvenient facts and manipulated the truth.
“Curley and Schultz have The Freeh group said Wednesday that it stands by its report.
Its investigation uncovered documents that suggest Spanier had deeper knowledge of the early Sandusky complaints, including an e-mail in which the president appeared to agree with athletic director Tim Curley’s decision to keep a 2001 assault from child-welfare authorities and instead work directly with Sandusky and Sandusky’s charity for at-risk youths.
“The only downside for us is if the message isn’t `heard’ and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it,” said Spanier’s e-mail, dated Feb. 27, 2001. “The approach you outline is humane and a reasonable way to proceed.”
Spanier’s four high-profile lawyers, who are being paid by Penn State, argue that Freeh took the e-mail out of context.
Spanier and Coach Joe Paterno were ousted in November, days after Sandusky was charged. Sandusky, who maintains his innocence, awaits sentencing.
Curley and vice president GarySchultz are charged with perjury and failing to report suspected child abuse.
