Former Penn State President Graham Spanier has been charged with several counts

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Expert: Penn State report ups legal risk for former president

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...port-ups-legal-risk-for-former-president?lite

Of four former top Penn State employees accused by an independent investigation of concealing sexual abuse by Jerry Sandusky, one is dead and two are facing charges of perjury and not reporting abuse.

The fourth, former university president Graham Spanier, remains on the Penn State staff and hasn't been charged.

But a report published Thursday on what went wrong at Penn State outlines Spanier's actions and could increase the likelihood that prosecutors will pursue criminal charges against him as well, a legal expert said............

"As he told Judge Freeh himself last Friday and has steadfastly maintained, at no time in his 16 years as President of Penn State was Dr. Spanier told of any incident involving Jerry Sandusky that described child abuse, sexual misconduct, or criminality of any nature."

Email conversations documented by the report seem to suggest that Spanier was informed by Shultz about the 1998 investigation of Sandusky, which arose after a mother alleged that the coach sexually assaulted her 11-year-old son in a shower..............

There is no record of Spanier speaking directly to McQueary.

"(Spanier's) biggest defense is he didn’t hear it from McQueary," said Filler. "He heard it from Curley and Schultz."..............
 
"As he told Judge Freeh himself last Friday and has steadfastly maintained, at no time in his 16 years as President of Penn State was Dr. Spanier told of any incident involving Jerry Sandusky that described child abuse, sexual misconduct, or criminality of any nature."



well now...did he tell the grand jury the same thing? its not good to lie to grand juries.
 
Report paints former Penn State president Graham B. Spanier as a chief villain in the Sandusky case

http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-14/news/32664385_1_sandusky-case-jerry-sandusky-karen-peetz

Once one of the most highly regarded college presidents in the nation, Graham B. Spanier emerged in Thursday's investigative report on Pennsylvania State University as a main villain in what experts said could best be summed up as a complete failure in university leadership.

Spanier knew about allegations of inappropriate behavior by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky in 1998 and 2001 but failed to inform the university's board of trustees, according to the exhaustive report prepared by former FBI Director Louis Freeh and his team.

Even when a grand jury was preparing to release its presentment and indict Sandusky on charges that he abused young boys sexually on and off Penn State's campus - and to indict two Penn State administrators on charges of perjury - Spanier was seeking to downplay the case and the amount of information that trustees were told about it, the report says..............
 
From p. 53 of the report:

Cynthia Baldwin, who was then General Counsel, confirmed to the Special Investigative Counsel that Spanier was asked about the 1998 event in the interview before the Grand Jury appearance. 182 According to Baldwin, after the interview, Spanier said the interview "was no big deal" and he was "quite comfortable" going before the Grand Jury.183


I wonder if Spanier will continue to think his interviews with the AG and GJ are no big deal and remain so comfortable as they build their case against him.
 
Report paints former Penn State president Graham B. Spanier as a chief villain in the Sandusky case

http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-14/news/32664385_1_sandusky-case-jerry-sandusky-karen-peetz


Even when a grand jury was preparing to release its presentment and indict Sandusky on charges that he abused young boys sexually on and off Penn State's campus - and to indict two Penn State administrators on charges of perjury - Spanier was seeking to downplay the case and the amount of information that trustees were told about it, the report says..............

i note that in their press conference last week the head of the BOT made the point several times that their trust in Spanier was misplaced, and that he misled them about important facts. in fact the BOT spent a lot of energy justifying why they would have been so quick to believe him...because he was such a "respected" administrator...and so on and so on....
 
Spanier has the problem of his own suggestions. He can claim that there was nothing wrong conflicts with the plan to call DPW. If there is nothing wrong, why talk about bringing in DPW.
 
Exactly, J. J.! and why say there may be repercussions if they don't report if the 'subject' does not cooperate, if there is nothing to report?
 
No clue if this belongs here or not but since it's about Spanier, I thought maybe....

It seems that he has dropped his lawsuit against Penn State regarding the e-mails.
 
July 19, 2012

Spanier's faculty status at PSU under scrutiny

Excerpt:

Given Sandusky's conviction and the Freeh report, Donald Heller, dean of the College of Education at Michigan State University, predicted Penn State would rather negotiate with Spanier for his resignation than revoke his tenure.

"I don't think they're going to want to fight that battle with everything else that's going on," said Heller, who was director of the study of higher education at Penn State for 10 years until he left in January.


Full: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/colleges/penn_state/162982956.html#ixzz215LQXutl
 
This is from Mon. and Spanier has dropped his suit over the emails but I thought it was interesting...wonder if this is what is keeping him from being charged?

Attorneys: Spanier's Top-Secret Security Clearance Upheld After Investigation

http://www.statecollege.com/news/lo...clearance-upheld-after-investigation-1092254/

Attorneys for former Penn State President Graham Spanier released a statement Monday afternoon attacking the credibility of Louis Freeh's report and that their client's top-secret security clearance was ignored in the investigation. ..............

"Dr. Spanier has for some time held a top secret security clearance in connection with his work with the federal government. This clearance required a re-review when the Sandusky matter surfaced in November. Federal investigators then conducted a four-month investigation of their own in which they interviewed many of the same individuals the Freeh Group interviewed and other relevant individuals Freeh did not interview. At the conclusion of the investigation the government reaffirmed Dr. Spanier's clearance.

"Although Dr. Spanier told Mr. Freeh directly about the federal security investigation and its result, there is no mention of it anywhere in the Freeh report...........
 
I guess this ties in with this thread.


Corbett: AG’s investigation met with “incomplete” cooperation from PSU under Spanier

Corbett told reporters Thursday the state Attorney General’s office didn’t receive full cooperation when it subpoenaed Penn State while the university was under the administration of former president Graham Spanier.

Continues at http://www.witf.org/statehousesound...incomplete-cooperation-from-psu-under-spanier
 
This may be O/T but...why does a university president have top-security clearance with the government?

http://articles.mcall.com/2012-04-1...panier-national-security-penn-state-president
Spanier's interest in national security issues was no secret. He was chairman of the FBI National Security Higher Education Advisory Board until his ouster from the Penn State presidency last November and sat on several advisory boards including the National Counterintelligence Working Group, the Board of Advisors of the Naval Postgraduate School and the Navy College of War.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/counterintelligence/strategic-partnerships/
The National Counterintelligence Working Group was designed to establish strategic interagency partnerships at the senior executive level among the United States Intelligence Community (USIC), academia, industry, and defense contractors. Working through the NCIWG, the USIC has conveyed a consistent message with regard to its efforts to protect our national security.

Still doesn't make any sense to me.
 
Spanier throws BAldwin under the bus:
http://triblive.com/news/2257015-74...y-state-freeh-report-university-former-letter
In a five-page letter to the board dated Monday, Spanier said former General Counsel Cynthia Baldwin never told him of “any materials being subpoenaed from the university, or even that I had been subpoenaed to testify” before the grand jury investigating Jerry Sandusky’s child-sex crimes.

“I had no preparation or understanding of the context” before appearing at the grand jury, Spanier wrote in the letter, which the Tribune-Review obtained. “As I was being sworn in for my grand-jury appearance, much to my surprise, (Baldwin) handed over to the judge a thumb drive containing my entire history of emails back to 2004.”

Sounds like she threw him first.
Corrective edit- since the emails were post 2004, she was probably just complying with the subpoena.
 
From an old article:
Spanier was fired Wednesday — a day he originally was to be honored by the Penn State community for the $1 million that he and his wife, Sandy, were donating to the university. He stepped down amid a scandal of untold proportions that no other college or university is believed to have seen.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/11/graham_spanier_deserves_a_lot.html

I wonder if the donation was completed.
 

Then his own experience with abuse should have made him know how important it is to report any kind of abuse of children but instead he placidly went along with not reporting the sexual abuse of children that occurred in the school when he was president, and therefore had the final decision. Furthermore, he never followed up on that decision as agreed.

The couple of comments are not too sympathetic either.
 
Then his own experience with abuse should have made him know how important it is to report any kind of abuse of children but instead he placidly went along with not reporting the sexual abuse of children that occurred in the school when he was president, and therefore had the final decision. Furthermore, he never followed up on that decision as agreed.

The couple of comments are not too sympathetic either.

I think the point of one those comments was that he knew it could end up damaging PSU. If he thought this was "horseplay," why would this be damaging, why was he worried about the "downside" of not reporting it?
 
I think the point of one those comments was that he knew it could end up damaging PSU. If he thought this was "horseplay," why would this be damaging, why was he worried about the "downside" of not reporting it?

Well, I think we've heard how Spanier has a habit of 'downplaying' what happened...to the investigators, the grand jury, the BOT and Freeh and now Baldwin....maybe that all began with his downplaying it in his own mind so he could justify not reporting...big mistake....he knew the truth is why he was worried and was just as instrumental in the cover up as the others, IMO

Spanier reminds me of a fish flipping and flopping around to escape capture...but he was caught by Freeh and is still fighting that line...but I don't think it will do him any good...his trial is one of the main things I am looking forward to now...and I don't think Curley and Schultz are gonna help him either...
 
Then his own experience with abuse should have made him know how important it is to report any kind of abuse of children but instead he placidly went along with not reporting the sexual abuse of children that occurred in the school when he was president, and therefore had the final decision. Furthermore, he never followed up on that decision as agreed.

The couple of comments are not too sympathetic either.

If everyone had been abused like Dr. Spanier, than we would see more people like him. No sympathy for him.
 

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