Penn State leaders don't endorse Sandusky coverup findings

Kevin Johnson | USA TODAY

A year after a scathing report criticized Penn State University's initial handling of child sexual abuse claims leveled against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, school leaders said Tuesday that they do not endorse key findings that coach Joe Paterno and three other university officials actively concealed information about Sandusky's behavior.

Keith Masser, chairman of the university's board of trustees, told USA TODAY's Editorial Board that conclusions about the motivations of Paterno, former university President Graham Spanier, former Athletic Director Tim Curley and former Vice President Gary Schultz detailed in a report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh amounted to "speculation.''

Masser said that the board has embraced recommendations for improving operations that were contained in that same report, including establishing more rigorous institutional controls. The school has implemented 115 of the report's 119 recommendations. But Masser said he would let "the courts decide on the coverup."

Although the report was commissioned by the university, Keith Eckel, another university trustee, said he was "surprised that…Freeh came to conclusions as far as responsibility.''

In a wide-ranging discussion about the university's response to the sexual abuse scandal, which resulted in a transformation of university leadership, Paterno's ouster and Sandusky's conviction on 45 criminal counts, the officials also would not commit to making public the details of financial settlements with victims in the case.

Last week, the university's trustees approved a resolution authorizing the school to make settlement offers to an undisclosed number of victims who were abused by Sandusky.

Penn State President Rodney Erickson called the board action "yet another important step toward the resolution of claims from Sandusky's victims.''

Claims from about 30 victims were being considered, including eight victims who testified against Sandusky at his trial last year.

"The university intends to deal with these individuals in a fair and expeditious manner, with due regard to their privacy,'' Erickson said in a statement issues after the board actions.

The trustees said Tuesday that any decision to publicly release information about the settlements would come only after consultation with university attorneys and "respecting the privacy of the victims.''

Trustees were equally uncomfortable addressing the most controversial contents of the Freeh report issued last July, which concluded in part that "the most powerful leaders at Penn State University — Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley — repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from the authorities, the Board of Trustees, the Penn State community and the public at-large. ...

"Although concern to treat the child abuser was expressly stated, no such sentiments were ever expressed by them for Sandusky's victims,'' the report concluded.

Spanier, Curley and Schultz have been charged with criminal counts related to the Sandusky scandal. Their cases are pending.

All have denied any wrongdoing. Paterno, who led the university's football program for nearly 50 years, died in January 2012 shortly after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

Paterno's family issued a statement Tuesday saying, in part: "What Freeh represented a year ago as solid evidence is now widely understood to be unsupported speculative conclusions, rather than hard facts. ... Unfortunately, the NCAA based their unprecedented penalties against Penn State entirely on the Freeh report."

Freeh did not immediately respond to a request for comment.