Former Penn State President Charged In Sandusky Case

The former President of Penn State University has been charged in  connection with the university’s failure to act in the fact of reports that Jerry Sandusky was abusing children:

Graham B. Spanier, the former president of Penn State, was charged Thursday with helping to cover up the child abuse allegations involving Jerry Sandusky that have roiled the university and its famed football program over the past year.

During a news conference, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Linda Kelly, said Spanier faced five charges: perjury, obstruction of justice, endangering the welfare of children, criminal conspiracy and failure to report suspected child abuse. She also said that two other former university officials — Gary Schultz, the former university vice president, and Tim Curley, the former athletic director — would face the same five charges.

Schultz and Curley were already scheduled to stand trial in January on charges of perjury and failing to report child sexual abuse. Kelly specifically mentioned incidents in 1998 and 2001 when Spanier, Schultz and Curley spoke about allegations that Sandusky had abused boys on campus but did not take measures to stop him.

“If these men had done what they were supposed to do and legally required to do, several young men may not have been attacked by a serial predator,” Kelly said. The Spanier charges come nearly a year after Pennsylvania authorities arrested Sandusky, a former top assistant to Joe Paterno. Sandusky, 68, was later convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse and, in October, sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.

Authorities are now focusing on Penn State officials, like Spanier, examining their handling of allegations of abuse against Sandusky.

This isn’t over quite yet, apparently.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Hal 10000 says:

    No real surprises, given what was was in the Freeh Report. I think the shoe everyone is waiting for right now is what, if anything, went on in Corbett’s office. As I recall, the state Democrats want a federal investigation.

  2. @Hal 10000:

    As I recall, the state Democrats want a federal investigation.

    I’m sure they do, but as a practical matter it’s gonna be really hard to justify this as anything other than a politically motivated fishing expedition. The only real argument is that Corbett took to long to investigate the matter, and I can’t really see any objective observer setting a precedent that a prosecutor who takes too much time to investigate some crime is therefore complicity in the crime itself.

    Indeed, one would think that a supposedly pro-civil liberty party like the Democrats would be loathe to create even more incentive for prosecutors to bring premature indictments.