Penn State faces $2.4 million fine for violations of federal crime reporting law pre-Sandusky

Almost exactly five years after Pennsylvania State University was rocked by the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, the fallout continues, this time with the U.S. Department of Education levying a $2.4 million fine against the school for violations of federal crime reporting laws.

The fine is the largest ever assessed under the federal Clery Act, said the department, which found 11 areas of violations.

While only $27,500 of the fine is directly related to the handling of the Sandusky case, it undoubtedly will get the most attention because the department faults the university for failing to warn students and staff that a sexual predator was among them.

"In short, a man who was about to be charged with violent crimes against defenseless minors was free to roam the Penn State campus, as he pleased," wrote department official Susan D. Crim in a letter to Penn State President Eric Barron, outlining the report and fine.

The department on Thursday afternoon released the 239-page report on its investigation into the university's compliance with the Act, which it began just days after Sandusky was indicted for assaulting young boys on and off campus. The investigation covered a period beginning in 1998 when the first complaint about Sandusky's abuse surfaced through 2011 when the former assistant football coach was indicted by a grand jury, along with two former Penn State administrators, charged with covering up Sandusky's abuse.

Under the Clery Act, colleges and universities are required to disclose all sexual assaults, murders, robberies and other crimes that occur on campus and in the surrounding community that are reported each year. They also must issue timely warnings if there is an ongoing threat to students and staff.

The university faces the biggest portion of the fine, about $2.1 million, for failure to properly classify reported incidents and disclose crime statistics from 2008 to 2011. The university for example failed to report 40 crimes to the education department in 2011, the bulk of them drug abuse and liquor law violations.

In the Sandusky case, the department fined the university for failing to issue an emergency warning to students and staff even though there was evidence that senior officials knew he posed a risk.

The fine comes just days after a jury ordered the university to pay $7.3 million to Mike McQueary, the former graduate assistant football coach who blamed school officials for destroying his life and coaching career after he became the primary witness against Sandusky and the Penn State administrators charged with covering up the crimes. McQueary had said he reported to campus officials in 2001 that he had seen Sandusky assaulting a young boy in a campus shower.

Former Penn State President Graham B. Spanier, former athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz continue to face charges of child endangerment and failure to report child abuse in the case.

It's unclear what impact, if any, the education department report will have on the prosecution of the men. Perjury and obstruction of justice charges against them previously had been dropped.

Minutes after the report was released, Penn State issued a statement, emphasizing the university's overhaul of campus safety and governance regulations following the scandal.

"While regrettably we cannot change the past, today the university has been recognized for significantly strengthening our programs since 2011," the statement said. "The safety and security of our university community is a top priority and we are dedicated to full compliance with the Clery Act and the Drug Free Schools and Communities Act."

Several members of the university's board of trustees,who are meeting at University Park on Thursday and Friday, declined comment, noting that the university is still reading through the bulky report.

The fine represents another instance of the financial toll the Sandusky scandal has had on Pennsylvania's flagship university. Penn State settlements with Sandusky's accusers previously totaled $93 million and the NCAA fined the university $60 million.

Crim in her letter to Barron said the department found that prior to Sandusky's indictment the university had significant evidence that  he was a threat but continued to allow him access to campus facilities, even though the university was a "beehive" for child activity.

A former senior athletic official told the department's review team that in early 2011 - months before the indictment - he was directed by the general counsel to obtain Sandusky's keys to campus facilities, including an office Sandusky maintained in the Lasch building. Sandusky refused and continued to have access until the university changed the locks, Crim wrote.

The fact that the university sought Sandusky's keys proves officials knew of the risk, the department maintained.

"He posed an immediate threat to students, employees, as well as to estimated 20,000 children participating in youth camps at Penn State every year, and the many thousands more attending concerts, sporting events and other activities on the Penn State campus," the letter said.

The university in responding early on to the department's inquiry contended that the Sandusky case didn't require emergency notification because his access to campus was intermittent and the notification likely would have been prohibited by grand jury secrecy rules.

But the department asserted that the university didn't monitor Sandusky's presence on campus and therefore couldn't say whether he posed a threat. It also dismissed the grand jury secrecy argument.

"The university has not provided any reasonable explanation for not issuing such a warning under these circumstances," the department said.

The university has until Nov. 25 to contest the fine and request a hearing or agree to pay the fine.

The previous record fine under Clery was $357,500 imposed on Eastern Michigan University, the education department said. Under a settlement, the university paid $350,000.

The Clery Act became law in 1990,  named after Jeanne Clery, who was raped and murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University in 1986.

The Clery Center, which helps universities comply with the federal law, said the report and fine offer "powerful guidance for institutions across the country."

Penn State also was fined for lacking administrative capacity to comply with the law; it has since appointed an administrator to oversee Clery compliance and and has trained thousands of employees on the law.

Other violations cited by the department include failure to  produce adequate security and fire safety reports, issue timely warnings in other cases, establish an adequate system for collecting crime statistics from all sources and maintain an accurate and complete daily crime log. The department also found discrepancies in crime statistics reporting.

The department said it looked at a sample of university records including 854 incident reports in conducting its investigation. It also reviewed the controversial, investigative report by former FBI director Louis Freeh on the university's handling of the Sandusky matter.

In his 2012 findings, Freeh flagged potential problems with Penn State's Clery Act compliance and found its incomplete implementation at the university was a contributing factor in "the failure to report child sexual abuse committed by Sandusky."

Few officials, his report found, were aware of the Clery Act and its requirements and those in charge of monitoring compliance received little training and were often overworked.

Even once risk-management assessments flagged Penn State's spotty record meeting the act's requirements, "awareness and interest in Clery Act compliance . . . remained significantly lacking," said Freeh.

Staff writer Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this report.