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 Graham Spanier, who faces criminal charges stemming from the
molestation case involving former Penn State assistant football
coach Jerry Sandusky, alleges in his complaint that the report's
author, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, intentionally defamed him
and harmed his reputation.
The July 2012 report by Freeh accused Spanier and other Penn State
officials of covering up Sandusky's sexual abuse of children for
years in an effort to protect the university's multimillion-dollar
football program.
Sandusky was convicted in June 2012 of sexually abusing 10 boys over
a 15-year period. Now 71, he is serving a sentence of 30 to 60 years
in prison.
Spanier, who was fired in November 2011, is awaiting trial on
charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, failure to report
suspected child abuse, conspiracy and endangering the welfare of
children.
He has denied any role in a cover-up, saying he never learned of
Sandusky's misconduct until 2011 when the former coach was indicted.
His complaint calls Freeh's investigation "glaringly deficient and
grossly inadequate" and said investigators purposefully avoided
interviewing witnesses who would have cleared Spanier.
They were "determined to transform Dr. Spanier from a preeminent
academic administrator to a conspirator who enabled a serial
pedophile," it said.
Freeh accused top school officials of a cover-up that began as early
as 1998, when university police investigated allegations of abuse
but let Sandusky off with a warning.
The report also accused famed Penn State head football coach Joe
Paterno of helping cover up Sandusky's sexual abuse. Paterno died in
January 2012.
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"The Freeh report was little more than a public relations product
that expediently scapegoated a few individuals and was designed to
knock the controversy out of the news as quickly as possible," Libby
Locke, an attorney for Spanier, said in a statement.
Freeh could not immediately be reached for comment.
The defamation complaint, filed against Freeh and his law firm,
Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, in the Court of Common Pleas in Centre
County, Pennsylvania, seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive
damages.
The Freeh report was commissioned by the Penn State Board of
Trustees at a cost of $6.5 million.
(Reporting by Ellen Wulhorst in New York; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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