In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky verdict, law-enforcement officials are shifting their focus to Pennsylvania State University, where investigators have readied evidence against former top administrators and athletics officials.
Two of those people—Gary Schultz, the university’s former senior vice president of finance and business, and Tim Curley, the athletic director on administrative leave—face charges of lying to a grand jury and failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse against Mr. Sandusky, the former Nittany Lions defensive coordinator. A hearing in their case is scheduled for July 11, and the state’s attorney general has until August 1 to turn over evidence against them. Both men have maintained their innocence.
Sometime in the coming weeks, Louis J. Freeh, the former FBI director, is expected to release a report detailing, among other things, how much university officials knew about Mr. Sandusky’s behavior and why no one acted sooner to stop him. Mr. Freeh’s consulting company, Freeh Group International Solutions, was hired by Penn State’s Board of Trustees in November to perform an independent investigation into the university’s handling of suspicions about the former coach, who was convicted last week on 45 counts of sexual abuse against children.
Over the past seven months, the Freeh Group has reportedly interviewed more than 400 people, from top administrators, trustees, and faculty leaders to a guy who at one time washed the uniforms of the football team.
Based on Chronicle interviews with nine of those people—none of whom would allow their names to be used because the Freeh Group requested that all discussions be kept confidential—investigators have focused largely on what went on inside Old Main, the university’s administrative building. It was there, the prosecutors allege, that Mr. Schultz kept a secret file on Mr. Sandusky, including e-mail correspondence with Mr. Curley and others that contradicts their testimony before the grand jury.
In one of those e-mails, university officials allegedly agreed that it would be “humane” to avoid contacting outside authorities after learning that Mr. Sandusky had showered with a young boy in the football team’s locker room. That information was leaked this month to NBC News, based on documents that the Freeh Group’s investigators turned over to the attorney general. Lawyers for Mr. Schultz and Mr. Curley claim the correspondence confirms that the two men “conscientiously considered” reports of inappropriate conduct, reported it to Graham Spanier, then the university’s president, and deliberated about how to responsibly deal with it.
The Freeh Group has also zeroed in on how those and other top leaders dealt with a mix of problems in the football program. Investigators have asked whether Mr. Spanier or Wendell V. Courtney, Penn State’s former general counsel, interfered with the university’s judicial processes to take care of athletes involved in disciplinary cases.
One former top administrator, whom Mr. Freeh’s colleagues interviewed for four hours, provided the investigators with e-mails written by Mr. Spanier and Mr. Courtney. The Chronicle obtained those e-mails, which describe steps the two men took to protect players.
No charges have been filed against Mr. Spanier or Mr. Courtney. According to a grand-jury report last year, Mr. Spanier denied knowing that the allegations against Mr. Sandusky were of a sexual nature. In the same report, Mr. Courtney was cited as knowing about a 1998 incident involving the former coach. In a November article in the Centre Daily Times, Mr. Courtney denied knowledge of that investigation. He also said he didn’t know about the later allegations that Mr. Sandusky sexually abused a child on Penn State’s campus.
Two other people interviewed by Mr. Freeh’s staff—one several times—were asked about e-mails in which the president, the athletic director, and faculty leaders debated the proper oversight of athletics. Investigators appeared to find it problematic that some of Penn State’s top officials had resisted adopting certain practices that other athletic departments adhere to, including establishing a separate campus athletic board.
The university’s NCAA compliance efforts also came into question. Until recently, Penn State had just three compliance officers. Some Big Ten programs have more than three times as many. In a preliminary report, Mr. Freeh’s staff recommended increasing the compliance staff, among other measures. Shortly thereafter, Penn State posted a new athletics-compliance position.
All of this runs counter to the notion that many people had before November, when Penn State was often held up as a national leader in having stringent controls over sports.
Mr. Spanier used to sit down with coaches every fall and warn them about the temptation to bend the rules, says Scott Kretchmar, a professor of exercise and sport science and the university’s faculty athletics representative from 2000 to 2010.
“Graham used to always say, ‘If you make a minor mistake, self-report it and we can move on. But if you intentionally break a major rule and try to get away with it, you will be fired,’ ” Mr. Kretchmar said. “Very few universities, at least based on stories I’ve heard from my colleagues, have presidents who were hands-on like that and top-down saying, ‘We’re going to do it the right way.’”
Moving On
The Freeh investigators set up shop just down the hill from Old Main in a space that, for many years, housed a day-care center.
People who visited the offices said they sometimes saw a dozen or more individuals, some of whom have roots in law enforcement as deep as Mr. Freeh himself.
One person described the interviews as “right out of the movies.”
“You go in a room, and there’s one person on your extreme right, and one on your extreme left,” the official said. “They always interview in teams: One young, smartassed, highly educated lawyer, the other a former prosecutor or grizzled FBI agent.”
And by all accounts, those working for Mr. Freeh have been unyielding. “They’re trying to wheedle information out of me, I’m trying to get it out of them,” said another person who met with investigators. “Guess who won that battle?”
This week, the investigators’ offices appeared empty, as Mr. Freeh’s team has nearly wrapped up its work. Across the street, a new crop of first-year Penn State students and their parents milled around College Avenue.
Luke Synnestvedt, 19, of Bryn Athyn, Pa., who was starting classes Wednesday, said the Sandusky scandal never influenced his decision to enroll. “It’s kind of like we’re distanced from it,” he said. “It’s not a part of the college anymore.”
His mother, Aileen Synnestvedt, had a different feeling. “Sandusky definitely got what he deserved,” she said. “And if people here knew about it and didn’t do enough, they should be punished too.”
