Penn Staters group puts candidates for attorney general on notice
Penn Staters group wants to know where the candidates for attorney general stand on the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case and how it impacts the university.
The race is on for a new Pennsylvania Attorney General, and some Penn State alumni made it clear Wednesday that they are staking out their territory.
One day after Kathleen Kane said she would not seek re-election to the post, Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship has called on candidates for the office to state clearly their position on the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and what they would do to clear the university's name.
"Our members will be keenly aware of these issues when they enter the voting booth in November 2016," said Maribeth Roman Schmidt, a spokeswoman for the group, which has been highly critical of the investigation that found former Penn State leaders guilty of covering up Sandusky's abuse and the NCAA sanctions levied against the university.
Their scrutiny comes as former Penn State administrators Graham B. Spanier, Gary Schultz and Tim Curley continue to fight charges that they failed to report abuse by Sandusky, a former assistant football coach now in prison. Kane's office earlier this month asked the Pennsylvania Superior Court to reconsider its decision to throw out some of the most serious charges against the men.
The group, which claims more than 40,000 members, wants each candidate to state whether they will drop the charges against the men and "apologize to the Penn State community for the damage that the OAG's politically motivated prosecution has caused."
They also are looking for the candidates to weigh in on whether they will investigate The Second Mile Foundation, Sandusky's former charity, and former state prosecutor Frank Fina, who led the investigation that resulted in the charges against Spanier, Schultz and Curley.
They also are pushing for the candidates to investigate "for potential criminal conspiracy and fraud" members of the board of trustees, NCAA officials and former FBI director Louis Freeh, who issued the university-commissioned investigation that accused Spanier, Curley and Schultz of a cover-up.
Kane campaigned on skepticism about the attorney general's handling of the Sandusky case and pledged to review the matter, a stance that some believe helped her win the office.