A report into the what Penn State officials knew about the Jerry Sandusky scandal and whether they tried to cover it up has found senior leaders disregarded the safety and welfare of Sandusky's victims.
The report is the outcome of an investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.
"Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State," said former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who was hired by university trustees to look into what has become one of sports’ biggest scandals. "The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized."
After an eight-month inquiry, Freeh’s firm produced a 267-page report that concluded that Hall of Fame coach Paterno, President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley, and vice president Gary Schultz "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade."
“These men concealed Sandusky’s activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community, and authorities. They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky’s victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being . . .
“These individuals, unchecked by the Board of Trustees that did not perform its oversight duties, empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted, and unsupervised access to the University’s facilities and affiliation with the University’s prominent football program,” Freeh said.
Freeh called the officials’ disregard for child victims "callous and shocking."
"In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at the university — Spanier, Schultz, Paterno, and Curley — repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse," the report said.
Paterno "was an integral part of this active decision to conceal," Freeh said at a news conference.
School leaders "empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted, and unsupervised access" to campus and his affiliation with the football program, the report said. The access, the report states, "provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims."
Freeh said officials had opportunities in 1998 and 2001 to step in.
Sexual abuse might have been prevented if university officials had banned Sandusky from bringing children onto campus after a 1998 inquiry, the report said. Despite their knowledge of the police probe into Sandusky showering with a boy in a football locker room, Spanier, Paterno, Curley, and Schultz took no action to limit his access to campus, the report said.
"There’s more red flags here than you could count over a long period of time," Freeh said.
Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 criminal counts for abusing 10 boys. The scandal led to the ouster of Paterno and Spanier.
Trustee Anthony Lubrano, a critic of the board’s dismissal of Paterno in November, said the board was still formulating a response.
Freeh also said Sandusky’s conduct was in part a result of the school’s lack of transparency, which stemmed from a "failure of governance" on the part of officials and the board of trustees. He said the collective inaction and mindset at the top of the university trickled all the way down to a school janitor who was afraid for his job and opted to not report seeing abuse in a school locker room in 2000.
The report also singled out the revered Penn State football program — one built on the motto "success with honor" — for criticism. It says Paterno and university leaders allowed Sandusky to retire in 1999, "not as a suspected child predator, but as a valued member of the Penn State football legacy, with future 'visibility’ at Penn State," allowing him to groom victims.
Investigators, however, found no evidence linking his $168,000 retirement package in 1999 to the 1998 police investigation. Freeh called the payout unprecedented but said there was no evidence it was an attempt to buy Sandusky’s silence.
Sandusky’s trial last month included gut-wrenching testimony from eight young men who said he abused them as boys, sometimes on campus, and included testimony that showed he used his prestige as a university celebrity to manipulate the children.
By contrast, Freeh’s team focused on Penn State and what its employees did — or did not do — to protect children.
More than 430 current or former school employees were interviewed since November, including nearly everyone associated with the football program under Paterno. The Hall of Fame coach died of lung cancer in January at age 85, without telling Freeh’s team his account of what happened.
The report included a series of emails among school administrators following accusations against Sandusky in 1998 and 2001.
The emails point to coach Joe Paterno being aware of the 1998 accusation.
With the report now complete, the NCAA said Penn State now must address four key questions concerning "institutional control and ethics policies," as outlined in a letter sent to the school last fall.
"Penn State’s response to the letter will inform our next steps, including whether or not to take further action," said Bob Williams, the NCAA’s vice president of communications. "We expect Penn State’s continued cooperation in our examination of these issues."
The U.S. Department of Education is examining whether the school violated the Clery Act, which requires reporting of certain crimes on campus, including ones of a sexual nature. The report said Penn State’s "awareness and interest" in Clery Act compliance was "significantly lacking."
Only one form used to report such crimes was completed on campus from 2007 through 2011, according to the Freeh findings. And no record exists of Paterno, Curley, or assistant coach Mike McQueary reporting that McQueary saw Sandusky in a shower with a boy in 2001, as they would be obligated to do under the Clery Act.
As of last November, Penn State’s policies for Clery compliance were still in draft form and had not been implemented, the report found.
U.S. Department of Education said it was still examining whether Penn State violated the Clery Act, but declined to comment on Freeh’s report.
Mary Krupa, an 18-year-old Penn State freshman who grew up in State College, said the conclusion that the school’s highest officials were derelict in protecting children didn’t shake her love of the town or the school.
"The actions of five or six people don’t reflect on the hundreds of thousands" of students and faculty who make up the Penn State community, she said while walking through the student union building on campus.
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