STATEMENT OF LOUIS FREEH
TO PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER IN RESPONSE TO
“LEAKED” STUDY OF DENIER PENN STATE ALUMNI
February 6, 2019
Since the Freeh Report was issued almost seven years ago, the accuracy and sustainability
of its findings have been tested repeatedly at criminal and civil trials. Under this scrutiny,
the facts from the Freeh Report have been found to support Sandusky’s criminal conviction,
the criminal convictions of Spanier, Schultz, and Curley, voluntary dismissals by the
Paterno family of their suit against the NCAA, Spanier’s dismissal of his defamation suit
against Mr. Freeh, the jury and court findings in the McQueary defamation and
whistleblower cases, and the U.S. Department of Education’s five-year investigation
resulting in a record fine against Penn State. Indeed, just days ago, a Pennsylvania
appellate panel rejected argument after argument that Sandusky had raised in criticizing
the investigation of his crimes and his trial.
As summarized by the judge in the cases against three of the most powerful people at Penn
State who failed to protect against a child sexual predator, these three men “ignored the
opportunity to put an end to [Sandusky’s] crimes when they had a chance to do so.” In
imposing criminal sentence upon Spanier, Schultz and Curley, the judge aptly summarized
the failures at Penn State:
Why no one made a phone call to police is beyond me. Why Mr. Sandusky was
allowed to continue to use the Penn State facilities is beyond me. Mr. Paterno,
the legendary football coach, could have made that phone call without so much
as getting his hands dirty. Why he didn’t is beyond me.
And of course, former Senator George Mitchell, tasked after the Freeh Report with
reviewing Penn State’s progress on implementing the report’s recommendations, accepted
all of the recommendations and noted: “While parties may continue to argue about the
history that led to the Freeh Report and the [NCAA consent decree], a consensus has
developed that the principles at the heart of these reforms are best practices for the
governance of any large university.”
Now, a gang of deniers composed of former and current Penn State alumni trustees, many
of whom ran for their positions on a platform criticizing the Freeh Report, have selfcommissioned a rebuttal to the Freeh Report’s findings. Given the public criticisms
repeatedly advanced by these deniers, it can come as no surprise that their selfcommissioned “study” found alleged flaws in the Freeh Report. Responsible Penn State
trustees correctly have declined to authorize the release of this “study,” given its
questionable origins and biased approach. But now, the deniers appear to have leaked
their “study” and several cherry-picked documents from the Freeh review to select news

 outlets, disregarding their pledge made to a Pennsylvania court to maintain these materials
in confidentiality.
A small but vocal segment of the Penn State community, the deniers continue to detract
from the real victims in this case by trying to convince the public that Coach Paterno and
his football legacy were somehow instead the victims. The deniers continue to embarrass
the many thousands of outstanding Penn State students, faculty, and alumni by blindly
disregarding the uncontroverted facts in favor of a misguided agenda.
The deniers’ rallying cry is criticism of the Freeh Report’s statement that Penn State’s
“football culture” may have contributed to the events surrounding the harm caused to
many children at Penn State. By way of background, the Freeh Report had reviewed
excuses provided by Spanier, Paterno, Schultz and Paterno for their failures to report
Sandusky to the police or child services officials, and found it “more reasonable to conclude
that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity” these powerful men repeatedly
concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse. While avoiding bad publicity
was the “most significant” factor, the report noted eight other contributing causes to the
failure to report, including a “culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained
at all levels of the campus community.” The Freeh Report made no claim that this culture
of reverence was unique to Penn State, or the sole cause of the numerous and varied
failures detailed in the report.
While the Freeh Report contained many compelling examples of the climate at Penn State,
the incident with Sandusky and the janitors at the football facility in 2000 provides ample
support of the culture of reverence for the Penn State football program. Explaining the
decision not to report that Sandusky had been observed in the football locker room
showers with a young boy, one janitor said the decision was based on the fact that “football
runs this University,” which he said would have “closed ranks” to “protect the football
program at all costs.” The janitor also pointed in particular to Paterno’s unique status,
explaining that he knew “Paterno has so much power, if he wanted to get rid of someone, I
would have been gone.” Another janitor expressed a similar view, saying, “they’ll get rid of
all of us.” This incident demonstrates the dark side of a “culture of reverence” that can
silence those who witness crimes committed by those perceived to be protected by the
culture. No successful challenge to this compelling testimony has been mounted in any of
the court cases surrounding Sandusky’s wrongs. Indeed, the Pennsylvania appellate court
just this week again found proper the introduction of this testimony at Sandusky’s trial,
rejecting all of the criticisms the deniers make of this powerful evidence.
The deniers also repeatedly say that the Spanier trial proved the Freeh Report wrong
because the jury acquitted Spanier on a conspiracy count. One active alumni group
composed largely of deniers has said: “The story should be that there was no conspiracy to
cover up child abuse at Penn State.” But a juror who spoke publicly to explain the Spanier

 verdict perhaps best summarizes why this alumni group’s wishful thinking is wrong. The
juror said the jury acquitted Spanier of the conspiracy charge out of a feeling that there was
conspiring among the three men, but there was not evidence that the goal was to put
children at risk. “It didn’t feel like they were conspiring to endanger children,” the juror
said. “They were conspiring to protect Penn State.” (emphasis added). The juror’s
statement is understandable, given the closing argument by Spanier’s criminal case
counsel, who said that to find Spanier guilty of conspiracy, the jury would have to believe
that Spanier “agreed to enter into a conspiracy to commit endangering the welfare of a
child,” and that Spanier and his co-conspirators had “agreed to put children in danger,” and
took actions toward that goal.
We also understand that the deniers have leaked select draft pages of the Freeh Report,
allegedly supporting the finding that an investigator did not agree with Report’s
conclusions. While we have not reviewed the alleged support for this claim, we have seen a
leak of a document from early March 2012, where an investigator noted that there was yet
“no smoking gun to indicate [a] cover-up.” This statement made in early March 2012 is
fully understandable, as our team had not found the critical “smoking gun” evidence of the
2001 email trove among Schultz, Curley and Spanier until several weeks later, when we
discovered the email chain where Spanier agreed to not report Sandusky to the child
protective agency, as the “The only downside for us is if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted
upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it.” And it would be even
more weeks until Schultz’s notes, ominously wondering if Sandusky’s acts involved “other
children” and “the opening of Pandora’s box,” were finally secured after being hidden away
from our team. Or Schultz’s handwritten February 2001 note planning a meeting to
confront Sandusky and report him to DPW unless he “confesses to having a problem.”
These amazing admissions were the “smoking guns” that had been missing just a few
weeks before. We now know that Schultz himself admitted at Spanier’s trial that he was
concerned about Sandusky’s behavior even after the 1998 incident.
The deniers also place false hope in the 1998 decision not to charge Sandusky with a crime.
But a prosecutor’s decision not to criminally charge Sandusky neither exonerates Sandusky
nor ends Penn State’s obligation to protect its community from a known serial pedophile.
As the court made clear in ruling on Penn State’s insurance coverage for Sandusky’s crimes,
Penn State could face liability to molested children for its “negligent employment,
investigation, supervision, reporting to the proper authorities, or failure to so report.” The
court explained that as top Penn State officials became aware at least in 1998 (and perhaps
earlier) of potential abusive acts by Sandusky, and knew as the American public does that
sexual predators are often repeat offenders, Penn State could well have expected Sandusky
to continue to molest children in the future, which he did. We discussed these precise
dangers in our report, as well as the failure by Penn State leaders and board to have
addressed properly the risk presented by the allegations against Sandusky in 1998 or 2001.

 Ending Sandusky’s access to Penn State football facilities—his bait to lure a steady stream
of young boys—was one obvious step that should have been taken. Stopping Sandusky
from bringing boys on football bowl game trips would have been another reasonable step,
and may have spared Victim 4 from Sandusky’s sexual assault during the 1999 Alamo Bowl
trip. But Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley failed to take any of these or other
reasonable actions to keep their campus safe.
The unauthorized leak of the denier’s “study” hopefully can allow responsible members of
the Penn State community to move forward, leaving to the dustbin of history those reckless
and irresponsible former trustees who disregarded their fiduciary obligations and pledge
to a court, all to advance a misguided, tilted, dishonest and biased “study” that does nothing
to ensure that the wrongs of Penn State’s past are not repeated.