Spanier Trial Opens With Former Penn State President Facing Charges With Few Precedents

Prosecutors laid the groundwork here on Tuesday for their case against Graham B. Spanier, describing the former Pennsylvania State University president as part of a cabal of administrators who failed in their duties to protect children from the serial sexual abuse of Jerry Sandusky, a former Nittany Lions football coach now serving a decades-long prison sentence.

The case against Mr. Spanier, a highly respected college leader whose career was derailed by the Sandusky-abuse scandal, hinges on whether the former president endangered the welfare of children through a criminal conspiracy with his lieutenants. The strength of that narrative, as espoused by prosecutors, depends greatly on what Mr. Spanier may have been told, as far back as 1998, about troubling incidents involving Mr. Sandusky and young boys in Penn State locker-room showers.

Did the top leaders at Penn State let an evil man run wild, as prosecutors contend, or merely make a difficult judgment call, as Mr. Spanier’s lawyers argue, based on vague reports of inappropriate behavior? Such are the competing narratives set to play out in Dauphin County Court starting this week.

Much of what was presented on Tuesday, including sworn testimony and email evidence, has been publicly aired in previous legal proceedings or documented in an independent investigation — conducted by Louis J. Freeh, a former director of the FBI — of Penn State’s handling of the abuse scandal. The trial, however, marks the first time that those disparate threads of evidence, which point to yearslong concerns about the behavior of Mr. Sandusky, have been aimed at holding criminally liable a single Penn State administrator.

Penn State Scandal

This selection of articles from The Chronicle’s archives looks back on the Jerry Sandusky scandal and its fallout at Pennsylvania State University.

• With Last-Minute Ruling, Graham Spanier Evades Jumpsuit and ‘Hard Cell’
• Seeking Closure in Verdict, Penn State Finds More Discord
• Spanier’s Conviction Highlights Lessons of Sandusky Scandal

There is little if any precedent for a college leader of Mr. Spanier’s national stature to face prosecution for such serious crimes. Mr. Spanier is charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of children and one count of criminal conspiracy, all third-degree felonies that each carry a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine.

The severity of those charges loomed on Tuesday over a courtroom that was filled with spectators, including Mr. Spanier’s family and friends, a close-knit group that has protested Mr. Spanier’s treatment by both prosecutors and the university he once led. Mr. Spanier’s supporters say he has been scapegoated, and questions about the former president’s culpability have sown division within the university’s Board of Trustees.

Spanier Stands Alone

Entering the courtroom in a dark suit and navy-blue tie, Mr. Spanier stopped to greet Albert L. Lord, a Penn State trustee who has advised Mr. Spanier on his legal defense and helped to finance the former president’s defamation lawsuit against Mr. Freeh. Several other trustees who support Mr. Spanier have said they plan to attend the trial later in the week.

“He is really stressed,” Mr. Lord said of his friend, Mr. Spanier. “He never thought he’d be here. But I think he’s OK.”

Sandra Spanier, Mr. Spanier’s wife and an English professor at Penn State, sat in the front row of the gallery behind her husband throughout the day. When Mr. Lord asked how she was doing, Ms. Spanier gave a strained smile, assuring that she was fine “under the circumstances.”

During breaks in testimony, Mr. Spanier stopped to embrace his wife, who at one point slipped him a cereal bar, which Mr. Spanier quickly and discreetly consumed at the defense table.

Much blame has been cast on Penn State for its handling of the Sandusky scandal, which has cost the university tens of millions of dollars in legal settlements with victims and untold reputational damage. Mr. Freeh’s investigation faulted the president, his colleagues, the board, and even the rampant football culture of Penn State in a searing indictment of the university’s response to a predator operating in its midst.

In the legal proceedings now unfolding, however, Mr. Spanier stands alone. Timothy M. Curley, Penn State’s former athletics director, and Gary C. Schultz, a former vice president, were expected to be tried alongside Mr. Spanier. But both men recently took plea deals, and they have been listed as witnesses for the prosecution.

The testimony of the two men is expected to be vital in establishing, years after Mr. Spanier’s indictment, what the former president knew or did not know about Mr. Sandusky.

Mr. Lord said Mr. Spanier was offered a similar plea deal, but he rejected it, saying he would rather face prison than admit to crimes he did not commit.

“He never even acknowledged the possibility of going to jail until recently,” Mr. Lord said.

Red Flags

Through a series of witnesses called on Tuesday, prosecutors painted the first strokes in a portrait of an administration that repeatedly either missed, ignored, or concealed signs of child abuse. Mr. Spanier has repeatedly denied that he ever heard a report of any inappropriate sexual contact between Mr. Sandusky and a child, and his lawyers used cross-examinations to underscore that point.

The prosecution’s first witness, Ronald Schreffler, a former Penn State police detective, recounted an incident, in 1998, when the mother of an 11-year-old boy reported concerns that her son had showered with Mr. Sandusky. Recalling interviews with the mother and child, Mr. Schreffler said, “Jerry told him that he loved him,” picking the boy up in the shower “allegedly to get the soap off.”

Mr. Schreffler would go on to create an incident report of the investigation, titled “suspected child abuse,” but it never led to criminal charges. He later learned that the director of the university police, Thomas R. Harmon, had changed the title to a more innocuous one: “Administrative Information.”

In later testimony, Mr. Harmon said that he had retitled the report because he was concerned that a more graphic headline might impugn Mr. Sandusky, who had not been charged with a crime. Such an “unauthorized disclosure,” Mr. Harmon said, “might reveal Sandusky, his involvement in this.”

Emails put into evidence, which were projected on a large screen, showed discussions of the case among Mr. Harmon, Mr. Schultz, and Mr. Curley. In one such exchange, Mr. Spanier was copied. Time after time, however, Mr. Spanier’s lawyers sought to establish that the president was either distant from or wholly uninvolved with discussions about Mr. Sandusky.

Upon cross-examination, Mr. Harmon testified that neither Mr. Spanier nor his lieutenants had attempted to influence the 1998 investigation in any way. Indeed, Mr. Harmon said, he never discussed the case with Mr. Spanier at all.

The jury, which includes seven women and five men, also heard from Michael J. McQueary, a former Penn State football graduate assistant. Mr. McQueary testified that, in 2001, he witnessed “Jerry molesting a boy” in a locker-room shower and that he spoke of the incident to Mr. Schultz and Mr. Curley. But first, Mr. McQueary said, he reported the incident to Joe Paterno, Penn State’s legendary football coach, who died two months after the Sandusky scandal erupted.

The coach was devastated, Mr. McQueary said. “He put his hand up on his face, and his eyes just kind of went sad,” he said.

What Mr. McQueary saw and what he told Penn State officials about it have been scrutinized for years in legal proceedings and news accounts. In testimony on Tuesday, Mr. McQueary illustrated what he had observed by raising a flat palm in the air and smacking it with his other hand.

“It was Jerry behind the boy, right up against him,” said Mr. McQueary, emphasizing that the two were naked and contacting each other, skin on skin.

But Mr. Spanier has said that he heard only of “horseplay” between Mr. Sandusky and the boy. That word, the witness said, was not in Mr. McQueary’s description, or even in his vocabulary.

“Never once,” he said, “have I ever said that to anybody regarding this incident.”

Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.