But Curley later said in an email that he changed his mind "after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe." According to his report, Spanier, Schultz and Curley drew up a plan that called for reporting Sandusky to the state Department of Public Welfare in 2001.
But the former FBI chief and federal judge said the evidence shows "an active agreement to conceal."įreeh described Paterno as "an integral part" of that agreement. Asked on Thursday whether the actions of the four men amounted to a crime such as conspiracy or obstruction, Freeh said that would be for a grand jury to decide. The report said that Paterno and the other university officials hushed up child sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky in 2001 for fear of bad publicity. Paterno family spokesman Dan McGinn declined to comment on the criminal legal issues on Friday.Īt the very least, the Freeh report provides powerful ammunition to Sandusky victims looking to sue the university or Paterno's estate. Paterno died in January of lung cancer at 85. Spanier, who was ousted as Penn State president over the scandal, has not been charged, but a grand jury continues to investigate. They were charged last fall with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse and are awaiting trial. So far, the only two figures arrested in the alleged cover-up are Curley and Schultz. "Spanier, Paterno, Schultz and Curley are arguably responsible for endangering all of those kids that were abused later," he said. Will Spade, a former Philadelphia prosecutor who worked on a grand jury investigation of priests about a decade ago, agreed. "If you look at what happened here, it's very clear that they were aware that they had a pedophile on their campus," Oliver said. Oliver noted that a former top official in the Philadelphia Archdiocese was convicted of that charge in June for allowing a suspected pedophile priest to be around children. Legal experts said emails and other evidence in the Penn State investigative report released Thursday suggest that Paterno may have misled a grand jury when asked when he first heard about Jerry Sandusky's misconduct, and show that Paterno and other university officials put boys in danger with their failure to report sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky more than a decade ago.ĭuquesne University law professor Wes Oliver said the report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh reads like a prosecution case for a child endangerment charge against Paterno, then-President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and now-retired vice president Gary Schultz. If he were alive today, Joe Paterno - the coach who stood so long for character and integrity both on and off the football field - could be looking at charges such as child endangerment, perjury and conspiracy. Joe Paterno Could Have Faced Criminal Charges If He Were Still Alive, Including Child Endangerment and Perjury.