Penn State Scandal: Graham Spanier’s Lawyers Dispute Freeh Report

Penn State’s ex-president Graham Spanier and his lawyers are disputing the findings of the report of ex-FBI director Louis Freeh.

Freeh found at the university what was described in the report as

“total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims.” Freeh further concluded that “four of the most powerful people at The Pennsylvania State University”-including Spanier and Joe Paterno, the coach of the football team from 1966 to 2011-“failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.”

Spanier’s lawyers characterized the Freeh report as “blundering and biased.”

Spanier’s reaction to the report was included in a long description of his conversation with Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker.

The Freeh report is wrong, it’s unfair, it is deeply flawed, it has many errors and omissions. I know that they had a lot of very good people on that team working on this. They interviewed, they say, over four hundred and thirty people; many of those folks have spoken to me about their interviews. Many of them describe those interviews to me as a witch-hunt. They felt like it was back in the era of McCarthyism. I don’t want to be overly critical, because I think that’s the style of investigators, maybe. They put a lot of accusatory or threatening questions out there. Many people reported to me that they were asked questions in a very nasty way, like, “We understand you’re friends with Graham Spanier,” as if there was something inherently evil in that.

Spanier was the president of Penn State for 16 years before being fired over his handling of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

For more on Nittany Lions football, visit Penn State blog Black Shoe Diaries, plus Big Ten blog Off Tackle Empire, SB Nation Pittsburgh and SB Nation Philly.