Posted on Breaking Midstate News with The Patriot-News
on November 22, 2011, 4:00AM
Updated: Tuesday, November 22, 2011, 8:19 AM
Penn State University trustees turned to former FBI director Louis J. Freeh to lead an inquiry into child sexual assault allegations involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.After enduring harsh criticism over its handling of a child sex abuse scandal, Penn State University on Monday took the strongest step since it fired coach Joe Paterno by hiring a former director of the FBI to investigate what went wrong.
University trustees turned to Louis J. Freeh, appointed by President Bill Clinton to head the FBI from 1993 to 2001, to lead an inquiry into child sexual assault allegations involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
Freeh said he will look at the university’s governance, decision-making and actions regarding the allegations of child abuse. He is empowered to investigate all university employees, as well as the board of trustees. Freeh said any findings of criminal conduct will be reported to law enforcement.
He said he will conduct the investigation with “complete independence and take it wherever it may lead.”
Freeh was hired by a special committee formed by the trustees to oversee what committee Chairman Kenneth Frazier called a “comprehensive and independent investigation into exactly what happened.”
The investigation’s findings and recommendations would be made public when completed, but no interim reports would be issued, Frazier said.
The university made the announcement at a downtown Philadelphia hotel, perhaps trying to gain a handle on the allegations at the insular campus in State College.
Former state Attorney General Walter Cohen said the trustees made up ground for not acting when the scandal broke in March when The Patriot-News reported on the attorney general’s grand jury investigation into the sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky.
Sandusky was indicted Nov. 4 on 40 charges of sex crimes against boys, some dating to Sandusky’s coaching days at Penn State. The indictment followed a nearly three-year investigation by the attorney general that started in early 2009 when a Clinton County teenage boy told authorities that Sandusky had inappropriately touched him over a four-year period.
The scandal led to the resignation of university President Graham Spanier, the retirement of Vice President Gary Schultz and a leave of absence for Athletic Director Tim Curley. Curley and Schultz were charged with perjury and failure to report a crime.
“But if they know they need the former director of the FBI to tell them what they knew when they knew it, then they should go ahead and [hire him],” Cohen said.
Frazier and state Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis, the special committee vice chairman, said Freeh’s background in law enforcement was important to his selection.
Gov. Tom Corbett said Freeh “understands the role of a grand jury investigation and the role of the prosecutors, and he will work well with the attorney general’s office.”
The governor was consulted on Freeh’s hiring, said Kevin Harley, a Corbett spokesman.
Tomalis said a key consideration in selecting Freeh was that he had no ties with Penn State or Pennsylvania.
But hours after his hiring was announced, Freeh’s independence was called into question.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Freeh was employed from 2001 to 2006 as vice chairman and general counsel to MBNA, a financial company that had a lucrative arrangement with Penn State that gave the credit card issuer access to the university’s student and alumni addresses. MBNA also had ties to The Second Mile Foundation, a charity founded by Sandusky.
The story also reported that Freeh’s former boss at MBNA was Ric Struthers, a Penn State alumnus who is on the board of The Second Mile Foundation.
Attempts to reach Frazier and Tomalis on Monday afternoon about whether they were aware of these connections when they hired Freeh were not successful.
A spokesman for Freeh downplayed the link.
Stefanie Goodsell said in a statement that Freeh had no personal connection to Penn State and that he had no role in MBNA’s agreement with the university. She said that contract was entered into years before he joined the company.
MBNA was acquired by Bank of America in 2006, which, citing Securities and Exchange Commission documents, the Inquirer reported resulted in Freeh cashing out stock awards worth more than $20 million beyond his compensation.
Despite that history, Goodsell concluded her statement saying, “The investigation will be completely independent.”
Speaking about Freeh’s hiring at Loew’s Philadelphia Hotel, Frazier apologized to the alleged victims in the cases spelled out in lurid detail in the grand jury report. He said it was especially heartbreaking because some of the alleged acts might have occurred on university property.
He voiced hope that those allegations serve as a stark reminder of the need to report and stop such crimes. But for now, he said it’s time to look into what went wrong that allowed alleged incidents that the grand jury report says date to at least 1998 to essentially be swept under the rug.
Freeh’s pay has not been finalized. Frazier said the trustees have had no conversation with Freeh about his fee and no cap has been set on his charges.
The committee he chairs will comprise six trustees, a faculty leader, a graduate student and an alumnus or alumna. Tomalis said the committee’s role will be to offer counsel to investigators when needed.
No one will be above scrutiny, including the administration and trustees, Frazier said.
But the investigators will not have subpoena power or the ability to compel people to talk, particularly if they could find themselves to be criminally liable.
Frazier and Freeh didn’t give a timeline for the completion of the investigation that will go back to 1975 — 23 years before the earliest allegation of abuse mentioned in the grand jury report.
Freeh said his team will include former prosecutors with decades of experience in working on pedophile and predator cases and will examine evidence and records and interview witnesses.
The investigative team will review the university’s policies related to identifying and reporting sex crimes and misconduct, including a recent allegation made by a student that involved a faculty member.
Frazier said the internal review is intended to address the scandal that has done “irreparable harm” to Penn State.
“The university is more than just these terrible acts that now dominate the public discourse about Penn State,” he said.
How you can help
Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said the university has set up a confidential, toll-free hot line for anyone with information that could assist in this investigation. That number is 855-290-3382. An email account has been set up at PSUhelp@freehgroup.com.
Staff writer Charles Thompson contributed to this report.
Source
Early life and career
Born January 6, 1950 in Jersey City, New Jersey, Louis Freeh was educated by the Christian Brothers and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University in 1971. He received a J.D. degree from Rutgers School of Law-Newark in 1974 and an LL.M. degree in criminal law from New York University School of Law in 1984. Freeh was an FBI Special Agent from 1975 to 1981 in the New York City field office and at F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1981, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York as an assistant U.S. attorney. Subsequently, he held positions there as Chief of the Organized Crime Unit, Deputy U.S. Attorney, and Associate U.S. Attorney. He was also a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve.[2] In 1991, President George H. W. Bush appointed Freeh a judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, a position he held until he was appointed FBI director by President Bill Clinton in 1993. As a youth, Freeh became an Eagle Scout in 1963 and in 1995 was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award by the Boy Scouts of America.[3][4]
Freeh and his wife, Marilyn, have 6 sons. He is a devout Roman Catholic, although is not a member of the Opus Dei prelature (as rumors have stated).[5][6] According to The Bureau and the Mole, a book by David A. Vise, Freeh's son was enrolled at the private The Heights School in Potomac, Maryland, which Vise describes as "an Opus Dei academy".[7] Several of his sons are now enrolled in Archmere Academy, a Catholic school in Claymont, Delaware. One of his sons currently attends Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
Source: Wiki
