Posted on 11/20/2014 5:24:26 PM PST by FlJoePa
In what looks like another key turn in the battle for facts about the foundation of Penn State's Freeh Report, a Potter County judge has ordered former FBI Director Louis Freeh to start complying with former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno's heirs' requests for its raw materials.
The ruling by Judge John B. Leete comes in the Paterno estate's lawsuit against the NCAA and Penn State, which seeks to invalidate the sanctions stemming from the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
Penn State's attorneys had objected to the subpoena of Freeh, arguing the work done by Freeh and his firm in examining Penn State's role in the scandal is subject to attorney-client privilege.
Leete dismissed that claim in September, and Penn State is appealing his ruling in Pennsylvania Superior Court.
On Thursday, however, Leete rejected Freeh's request for a stay of the subpoena while that appeal is pending, finding his successor Pepper Hamilton law firm has failed to make a strong showing that Penn State will win its appeal.
Wick Sollers, an attorney for the Paternos, called the decision significant.
"The court's ruling opens the door to the production of materials relating to the Freeh investigation and report that we viewed as improperly withheld under the claim of privilege," he said in an email to PennLive Thursday evening.
"We are proceeding to notice depositions and expect the relevant documents to be produced promptly and in advance of the depositions," Sollers added.
Attempts to reach Freeh for comment were not successful, and it remains to be seen how responsive Penn State's investigator will be to the estate's specific requests.
But with Leete's blessing for the plaintiff's to dig in, the ruling potentially opens a second major information channel this fall for those who feel Penn State and the Paternos' reputations were unfairly savaged by the Sandusky saga.
A number of high-ranking NCAA officials have already been deposed in a separate sanctions case pending in Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court.
Discovery in that case, brought by state Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre County, and Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord, has already revealed regular communication between the NCAA and Freeh's team.
The Paterno's case seems to call for a deeper dive into the raw materials mined to craft Freeh's July 2012 report, which asserted in part that former Penn State President Graham Spanier and two of his top aides – quite possibly with Joe Paterno's encouragement - sought to do damage control with respect to early allegations against Sandusky rather than confronting them aggressively at the time.
The original March subpoena seeks, for example, all documents that relate to findings that Joe Paterno "concealed critical facts" about Sandusky from Penn State leadership, or that Paterno believed his longtime defensive coordinator to be a sexual predator at the time of Sandusky's 1999 retirement.
The estate also wants all communications or documents pertaining to the board of trustees' November 2011 decision to fire Joe Paterno, and any documents that might show internal questions or concerns about the report's findings.
The Paterno estate also seeks Freeh's client file on Penn State, which would presumably give them access to interview notes and other reports prepared in conjunction with the board-commissioned investigation.
Just last week, Penn State President Eric Barron told the Penn State trustees that he also intends to review the Freeh record.
Barron, as CEO of Freeh's original client, doesn't have to wage any legal battles to get the information. But he also can be as selective as he wants to be in what he releases.
Freeh's most ardent critics believe his conclusions resulted from a pre-determined strategy to help the university cut its losses and move forward, even at the cost of unfair damage to the reputations of Paterno and others.
The Paterno family has long held that its suit is the best way to get to the truth of how the association, school leaders and Freeh collectively responded to the scandal.
Those answers, they are convinced, are the only way the larger university community can heal from the divisive scandal.
Sandusky was convicted in June 2012 of sexually molesting 10 boys he met through his Second Mile youth charity between 1994 and 2008. He is currently serving a 30-year minimum prison term.
Penn State last year signed off on monetary settlements worth a total $59.7 million with 26 alleged Sandusky victims.
Spanier, former senior vice president Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley are awaiting trial now on charges that they failed to respond appropriately to early allegations about Sandusky, and then interfered years later with the state attorney general's probe.
Slap Slap Slap Slap Slap
I’m glad boy-rape facilitator Paterno lived long enough to die in abject shame.
Paterno looked at Sandusky, looked at the boys, and turned away.
I was talking about the evil Art Modell.
Joe can Rest in Peace.
Art, not so much.
#formerClevelader
.......I think my question and a lot of Americans generally is this.......”ok, even Paterno admits to some “degree” of responsibility but he’s dead..............SO........are the right people/entities, following his death, being punished?
Other questions:
Do the FACTS justify a century plus old and otherwise venerable University paying out 59 million dollars (of taxpayers money) because of what Sandusky did? Would half that amount been just as fitting to the REAL circumstances?
Do the FACTS justify the individual recipients of all this money being paid the amounts they were paid?
Do the FACTS justify the lifetime reputations of all football players whoever played for this institution being drug through the mud? (Example: 20 years later a son says to his father... “oh Dad, you were All American at Penn State...wasn’t that the school where YOUR coaches were fired for child molesting?”)
Do the FACTS justify the University exiling to Siberia the reputation of arguably the greatest College Football Coach that ever lived (both on and off the field)?
Warning: To all freepers that cannot refrain from name calling and insulting, I will not respond to you at all. I am merely asking questions of a fellow freeper who seems to know a lot regarding the instant subject. I am not “advocating” OR taking a position myself about this true and devastating to many American tragedy.
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